UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 
AT  LOS  ANGELES 


51  32 


TEN 

LECTURES  ON  ALCOHOL 


BY 

BENJAMIN  W.  RICHARDSON,  M.A.,  M.D.,  F.R.S., 

THIS  BOYAI.   COLLEGE  OF  PHYSICIANS,  AND    HONORARY    PHYSICIAN  TO 
THE  HOYAL  LITKHARY  FUK1). 


NEW  YORK : 
National  Temperance  Society  and  Publication  House, 

58     READE     STREET. 
1883. 


CONTENTS. 


i. 
ON  ALCOHOL, 190 

A  COURSE  OF  SIX  CANTOR  LECTURES,  DELIVERED  BEFORE  THE 
SOCIETY  OF  ARTS. 

II. 

ACTION  OF  ALCOHOL  ON  THE  BODY,       ....     30 

III. 
ACTION  OF  ALCOHOL  ON  THE  MIND,      ....     28 

IV. 
MODERATE  DRINKING,  FOR  AND  AGAINST,  .  47 

V. 
THE  MEDICAL  PROFESSION  AND  ALCOHOL,     .       ,  33 

VI. 
THE  LIBERTY  OF  THE  ABJECT,        .....     12 

VII. 
THE  EFFECTS  OF  ALCOHOL,  .....       8 


VIII. 
TWENTY-ONE  HISTORICAL  LANDMARKS,  .  .24 

TOTAL  PAGES,       .      .      .372 


ON   ALCOHOL. 

A   COURSE   OF   SIX   CANTOR   LECTURES    DELIVERED 
BEFORE  THE  SOCIETY  OF  ARTS. 


INTRODUCTORY  NOTE. 


course  of  Cantor  Lectures  on  Alcohol 
here  published  were  prepared  at  the  re- 
quest of  the  Council  of  the  Society  of  Arts,  and 
were  delivered  before  the  Society  in  the  months 
of  November,  December,  January,  and  February 
last. 

I  do  not  remember  to  have  delivered  any  Lec- 
tures that  have  attracted  so  much  earnest  public 
attention,  and  in  publishing  them  in  this  cheap 
form  I  am  responding  to  a  request  too  general  to 
admit  of  hesitation  or  delay  on  my  part.  With 
the  exception  of  the  transference  of  the  tabular 
matter  into  an  Appendix,  the  introduction  of  a 
few  minor  and  verbal  corrections,  and  the  addi- 
tion of  a  page  of  learned  and  interesting  passages 
kindly  communicated  to  me  by  Mr.  Stanford, 
M.A.,  F.R.S.,  the  Lectures  are  published  as 
they  were  spoken. 


6  Introductory  Note. 

In  this  form  I  found  them  favorably  received 
by  the  large  audiences  who  honored  me  with 
their  attention,  and  I  am,  therefore,  led  to  hope 
for  them  equal  favor  with  the  larger  public  to 
whom  they  are  now  addressed. 

It  remains  for  me  only  to  add,,  that  though  I 
have  spoken  out  freely  the  lessons  I  have  learned 
from  nature,  no  pledge  binds  me,  and  no  society 
banded  to  propagate  particular  views  and  tenets 
claims  my  allegiance.  I  stand  forth  simply  as 
an  interpreter  of  natural  fact  and  law. 

12  HINDE  STREET  W. 
May  i,  187$, 


CONTENTS 


Preface,  by  Dr.  Willafd  Parker,        . 


•       •        .  t 


On  Alcohol,  in  relation  to  some  of  its  varied  services  to 
Mankind, 13-40 


IL 

The  Alcohol  Group  of  organic  Bodies — Actions  of  diffe- 
rent Alcohols, 41-68 


ra. 

\yThe  Influence  of  Common  or  Ethylic  Alcohol  on  Animal 

Life — The-primary  physiological  Action  of  Alcohol,     .     69-63 


IV. 

The  Position  of  Alcohol  as  a  Food — Effects  of  Alcohol  on 
the  Animal  Temperatures-Hygienic  Lessons,        .       .  94-123 


8  Contents. 

v. 

PAG« 

The  Secondary  Action  of  Alcohol  on  the  Animal  Func- 
tions, and  on  the  Physical  Deteriorations  of  Structure 
incident  to  its  Excessive  Use 123-148 


VL 

'  Physical  Deteriorations  from  Alcohol  fow/z»»*/)— Influ- 
ence of  Alcohol  on  the  Vital  Organs — Mental  Phe- 
nomena induced  by  its  Use — Summary,  •  .  .  149-179 

APPENDIX,          .  ••••••  rti-igo 


I  AM  very  glad  to  learn  that  the  "  Course 
of  Cantor  Lectures  on  Alcohol,"  delivered  by 
B.  W.  Richardson,  M.D.,  F.R.S.,  before  the 
Edinburgh  Society  of  Arts,  is  about  to  be 
presented  to  the  American  public.  They  are 
clear,  scientific,  and  couched  in  language  free 
from  technicalities  and  easily  understood  by 
all.  I  have  seen  no  work  on  this  subject  so 
satisfactory  as  these  lectures,  which  present 
it  without  "special  pleading";  I  hope  they 
will  be  carefully  read  in  every  household. 
Aiming  as  they  do  to  impart  knowledge 
based  on  sound  scientific  principles,  to  the 
public  mind,  they  cannot  fail  to  awaken  it  to 
a  realization  of  the  evil  that  is  being  wrought 
by  this  agency,  most  destructive  to  human 
life  and  usefulness. 


IO  Preface. 

Alcohol  has  no  place  in  the  healthy  system, 
but  is  an  "  irritant  poison,"  producing  a  dis- 
eased condition  of  body  and  mind.  Statistics 
show  that  ten  per  cent,  of  the  annual  number 
of  deaths  in  this  country  are  due  to  alcohol; 
that  fully  thirty-five  per  cent,  of  our  insane, 
are  so  either  directly  or  indirectly  from  its 
use;  and  that  from,  seventy-five  to  ninety 
per  cent,  of  the  inmates  of  our  penal  and 
pauper  institutions  owe  their  condition  to 
its  influence.  Besides  this,  we  find  that  forty- 
five  per  cent,  of  the  inmates  of  our  asylums 
for  idiots,  are  the  offspring  of  parents  ad- 
dicted to  drink. 

Destroying   as   its   use  does,   the  will,   the 
judgment,  and  the  moral  sense,  may  we  not 
with    propriety   consider   it   a   cause   of    that 
low  state  of  public  and  private  integrity  which 
permits,  even   in  our  very  midst,  the  forma 
tion    of  those   shameful    combinations    to   de. 
fraud  and  steal  commonly  known  as  "rings"? 

Now  the  question  meets  us,  how  can  this 
destruction  of  lives  valuable  to  the  state  in 
their  productiveness,  be  arrested,  and  a  better 


Preface.  1 1 

condition  of  things  be  brought  about,  so  that 

O  O 

the  burden  of  our  taxation  be  lightened — tax- 
ation of  which  the  great  proportion  goes  to 
support  our  drinking-classes  and  their  off- 
spring. Let  public  intelligence  and  public 
morals  be  so  educated  that  the  cause  of  these 
things  be  appreciated,  and  so  appreciated  that 
they  shall  insist  on  laying  the  axe  at  the 
root  of  the  tree,  instead  of  lopping  off  the 
branches,  by  preventing  a  traffic  in  alcohol, 
instead  of  punishing  the  unfortunate  victims 
of  its  use. 

In  Pennsylvania,  in  the  year  1867,  for  every 
fourteen  dollars  received  from  license  fees, 
the  State  expended  one  hundred  in  the  sup- 
port of  the  victims  of  alcohol ;  on  principles 
of  political  economy,  is  this  sound  legisla- 
tion? 

If  the  habitual  use  of  distilled  liquors  in- 
crease as  rapidly  within  the  opening  century 
as  it  has  during  the  one  just  ending,  how  sad 
the  outlook !  I  can  discern  nothing  in  the  fu- 
ture but  a  wreck  of  national  honor,  and  the 
sinking  to  a  lower  standard  of  civilization 


12  Preface. 

and  morality,  unless  public  sentiment  in  this 
regard  be  changed.  As  a  means  to  this  end, 
let  me  again  express  the  hope  that  these 
lectures  may  be  carefully  read  in  every  home 
in  the  land. 

WILLARD  PARKER,  M.D.,  etc. 


ON   ALCOHOL. 


CANTOR   LECTURES. 


LECTURE  I. 

ON  ALCOHOL,  IN  RELATION  TO  SOME  OF  ITS  VARIED 
SERVICES  TO  MANKIND. 

WE  had  before  us  a  few  weeks  since  an  interest- 
ing national  event.  It  was  that  of  an  archbishop 
and  a  minister  of  the  Crown  speaking  almost  at 
the  same  time,  on  one  of  the  most  important  sub- 
jects of  the  day,  viz.,  the  part  performed  by  alco- 
hol on  the  national  stage  as  it  is  set  forth  and 
played  upon  at  this  period  of  our  history.  The 
distinguished  prelate  took  naturally  for  his  view  of 
the  subject  the  moral  influence  of  alcohol,  and  from 
this  point  denounced  alcohol,  in  whatever  form 
it  presents  itself  for  human  consumption,  in  terms 
as  eloquent  as  they  were  persuasive  and  forcible. 
The  statesman  took  for  his  view  of  the  subject  the 
financial  influence  of  alcohol ;  he  gave  a  clear  and 
by  no  means  exaggerated  estimate  of  the  impor- 
tance of  an  agent  which,  in  these  kingdoms,  rests 
on  an  invested  capital  of  not  less  than  one  hundred 


14  On  Alcohol. 

and  seventeen  millions  of  money ;  and  submitted 
in  conclusive  terms,  an  argument,  which,  contrasted 
with  that  of  the  prelate,  means  that  an  agent  so 
commercially  potential  cannot  be  materially  inter- 
fered with  in  the  present  stage  of  our  civilization, 
whatever  may  be  the  result  of  its  influence  on  the 
community  for  good  or  for  evil. 

To  the  utterances  of  the  church  and  of  the  legis- 
lative chamber  we  are  accustomed  to  listen  with 
such  regard,  that  when  any  representative  of 
either  body  speaks,  we  turn  an  ear  almost  auto- 
matically, and  accept  what  is  said  as  commanding 
respect,  even  though  we  dissent  from  the  opinions 
that  are  expressed.  No  one  therefore  who  stands 
out  of  these  spheres  can  hope  to  obtain  a  hearing 
extended  so  far  and  wide,  and  equally  authorita- 
tive. 

And  yet  there  is  scope  for  honest  utterance  on 
another  side  of  the  alcohol  question.  The  prelate 
and  the  legislator  can  hardly  have  more  intimate 
conversance  with  the  influence  of  alcohol  than  the 
physician  and  man  of  science.  To  the  moral  view 
of  the  question  and  to  the  legislative  may  well 
therefore  be  added  the  physical,  and  it  is  to  this  I 
shall  try  to  direct  public  attention  in  these  dis- 
courses, conscious,  fully,  of  the  disadvantages  un- 
der which  I  should  labor  were  it  not  for  the  coun- 
tenance and  support  I  shall  hope  to  receive  from 
you. 

The  strain  running  through  all  these1  lectures,  in 
however  diverse  a  manner  the  subject-matter  of 
them  may  be  pursued,  will  then  be  simply  this : 
Of  what  physical  value  has  alcohol  been  to  man  ? 


The  Term  "Alcohol."  15 

of  what  value  is  it  to  man  ?  We  know  it  is  of  no 
value  to  any  other  animal,  arid  thus  we  limit  our 
inquiry  at  once  to  the  highest  order  of  the  ani- 
mate series  of  natural  development,  or  of  natural 
creation. 

In  the  studies  that  are  in  this  sense  to  be  under- 
taken, I  will  not  fail  to  remember  the  injunction 
placed  upon  me  to  speak  simply  and  plainly ;  not 
to  offend  pride  of  learning  by  too  great  simplicity 
of  statement,  nor  yet  to  embarrass  humility  by  a 
display  of  technical  language  and  of  the  abstruse 
technical  reasoning,  for  which  the  subject  in  hand 
affords  so  much  opportunity.  As  far  as  possible  I 
will  strive  to  be  plainness  itself,  and  that,  not  only 
in  mode  of  expression,  but  in  matter  of  it ;  I  mean 
in  truthfulness  of  expression,  as  far  as  I  am  guided 
by  the  light  that  enables  me  to  see  what  is  nearest 
to  the  truth. 

I  shall  propose  in  this  description  to  glance  first 
at  the  value  of  alcohol  to  man  in  a  general  sense ; 
that  is  to  say,  to  its  value  as  an  agent  useful  for 
other  purposes  than  as  a  fluid  to  be  imbibed.  From 
this  I  shall  be  naturally  led  to  consider  its  action, 
physically,  on  man,  and  its  use  as  a  fluid  consumed 
with,  and,  according  to  common  acceptation,  as  a 
food.  Lastly,  I  shall  be  brought  to  treat  upon  its 
secondary  action  on  the  vital  functions,  physical 
and  mental,  i.e.,  on  the  deteriorations  of  structure 
and  derangements  of  function,  which  may  follow 
its  use. 

THE  TERM  "ALCOHOL." 

The  first  employment  of  the  word  alcohol  is  ol> 


1 6  On  Alcohol. 

scurely  recorded.  Bartholomew  Parr,  one  of  the 
most  learned  of  our  scientific  classics,  taking  the 
usual  derivation  of  the  word  as  from  the  Arabic 
A'l-ka-hol,  a  subtile  essence,  says  it  was  originally 
employed  to  designate  an  impalpable  powder,  used 
by  the  Eastern  women  to  tinge  the  hair  and  the 
margins  of  the  eyelids.  As  this  powder,  viz.,  an 
ore  of  lead,  was  impalpable,  the  same  name  was 
given  to  other  subtile  powders,  and  then  to  the 
spirit  of  wine  exalted  t©  its  highest  purity  and  per- 
fection. 

The  earliest  systematic  and  truly  scientific  use 
of  the  term  that  I  can  discover  is  in  Nicholas  Le- 
mert's  '  Course  of  Chemistry,"  published  in  1698. 
There  the  word  is  used  as  a  verb,  "  to  alcoholize," 
and  the  definition  of  this  is  said  to  be  "  to  reduce 
to  alcohol,  as  when  a  mixture  is  beaten  into  an  im- 
palpable powder."  The  word,  says  Lemert,  is  also 
used  to  express  a  very  fine  spirit ;  "  thus  the  spirit 
of  wine  well  rectified  is  called  the  alcohol  of 
wine." 

The  word  employed  in  this  sense  merely  tells  us 
of  a  refined  fluid  substance  obtained  by  a  subtile 
pfocess  of  separation  from  a  grosser  substance. 
But  it  was  not  applied  to  the  special  fluid  now  un- 
der our  consideration  until  long  after  that  fluid  had 
actually  been  separated.  Then  it  was  used  as  a 
supplementary  term  to  the  earlier  terms,  Vinum 
adustum,  Vinum  ardcns,  Spiritus  vini,  Spirit  us  ar 
dens,  by  which  a  spirit  obtained  from  the  grosser 
fluid,  by  the  action  of  fire,  was  known  and  de- 
scribed. 


Fermentation  of  Wine.  17 

FERMENTATION  OF  WINE. 

We  must  now  go  back  to  a  much  earlier  study, 
viz.,  to  the  study  of  the  primitive  fluid,  from  which 
the  subtile  spirit  was  derived.  In  the  history  of 
the  production  of  alcohol  we  gather,  in  fact,  the 
use  of  two  of  the  most  prominent  words  of  our 
modern  language  :  fermentation  and  distillation. 
They  each  mark  distinct  progressive  epochs  in 
natural  science. 

The  term  fermentation  brings  us  in  contact  with 
the  primitive  fluid.  It  leads  us  to  ask  how,  from 
the  vegetable  world,  by  change  or  mutation  of  its 
matter,  a  new  product  was  evolved  ?  The  origin  of 
this  procedure  is  so  old  we  have  no  possible  means 
of  tracing  it.  Before  ever  the  word  chemistry,  or 
the  science  which  that  word  implies,  was  dreamed 
of,  this  process  of  obtaining  the  crude  liquor,  from 
which  alcohol  was  ultimately  extracted,  was  in 
active  operation.  By  some  accidental  discovery  it 
had  been  started  by  human  hands,  and  the  act  of 
first  lighting  and  reproducing  fire  was  hardly  a 
less  wonderful  development  of  the  higher  faculties 
resident  in  man,  than  was  this  discovery.  The 
operation  itself,  originally,  was,  we  may  presume, 
very  simple.  As  there  is  a  spontaneity  in  nature 
to  produce  fire,  as  for  instance,  when  a  metal  like 
iron  strikes  a  stone,  so  there  is  a  spontaneity  of 
fermentation  in  vegetable  matter — especially  in  the 
juices  of  fresh  ripe  fruits  in  warm  weather — which 
fact  being  observed,  first,  from  the  motion  induced 
in  the  fluids,  and  secondly  from  the  crude  products 
that  were  left,  would  lead  naturally  to  the  contem- 


1 8  On  Alcohol 

plation  of  the  steps  of  the  process,  to  its  easy,  arti- 
ficial, and  more  perfect  development,  to  a  method 
of  separating  and  purifying  the  products,  and  after- 
wards of  tasting  and  using  them. 

The  products  of  fermenting  fruits  were  limited 
to  four :  an  active  air  which  escapes  freely ;  a  froth 
or  yeast  which  floats  above  as  a  crust;  a  heavy 
mass  or  lees  which  sinks  to  the  bottom  ;  and  a  fluid 
which  remains  apart.  These  portions,  each  read- 
ily separable,  indeed,  separable  of  themselves,  were 
soon  understood  in  respect  of  their  virtues.  That 
invisible  air,  which  escapes  so  actively,  is  a  deadly 
vapor  or  miasm  ;  that  froth,  unpleasant  to  the 
taste,  is  an  active  promoter  of  the  motion  that 
springs  from  the  fruit;  those  lees  arc  like  sediment 
from  muddy  water,  excrementitious,  to  be  cast 
away  ;  but  that  remaining  subtile  fluid,  to  the  pal- 
ate so  grateful,  to  the  senses  so  exhilarating,  to  the 
heart  so  forcing,  to  the  intellect  so  exciting  or  so 
deadening : — let  it  be  brought  forth  in  the  daintiest 
cups  the  handicrafts  can  fashion  from  the  rude 
earth !  It  is  not,  to  the  savage,  a  mortal  thing  at 
all.  Water  flows  in  open  streams,  a  common 
liquid,  at  which  cattle  and  creeping  things  may 
drink ;  this  must  be  the  drink  of  the  superior  in- 
telligences from  whom  the  savage  came !  It  lifts 
the  man  who  takes  it  into  a  higher  sphere  of  life, 
or  it  degrades  him  to  the  lowest.  It  introduces 
him,  as  it  were,  to  a  new  human  organization  that 
is  not  to  be  a  passing  phenomenon,  but,  for  good 
or  for  evil,  is  to  remain  for  ages. 

The  fluid  is  wine. 

The  discovery  is  an  epoch  surpassed  by  none 


Fermentation  of  Wine. ":  19 

other,  in  the  history  of  one  portion  of  man- 
kind, and  the  early  dawning  civilizations  show 
their  wonder  at  it  in  their  mythology.  Egypt 
claims  the  invention  for  her  god  Osiris,  Greece  for 
Bacchus,  and  Rome  for  Saturn.  The  Greeks,  most 
ambitious  to  be  connected  with  the  origin,  assert 
that  the  very  name  belongs  to  them,  for  the  drink 
was  first  discovered  in  yEtolia  by  Orestheus,  the 
son  of  Deucalion,  whose  grandson,  Oeneus,  was  so 
called  from  Oinos,  which  was  the  old  name  of  the 
vine.  Or  else  the  discovery  was  by  Oeneus  him- 
self, who  first  pressed  the  rich  grapes.  Thus 
Oinos — oinon — vinum — wine.  Then  by  these  na- 
tions the  praises  of  wine  and  of  the  wine  gods,  one 
and  all,  were  sung  into  the  later  times.  The  first 
of  the  Roman  poets,  excited  to  his  labor  by  Maece- 
nas, the  friend  of  Augustus,  who  would  that  the 
vineyards  should  flourish,  is  thus  prompted  to  in- 
voke Bacchus,  under  the  name  of  Pater  Lenaeus — 

"  Hither,  oh,  Lenseus— Father  Lenaeus,  come. 
By  thee  with  heavy  viny  harvest  crowned, 
The  pasture  flourishes.     In  the  full  vats 
The  vintage  foams. 
Hither  Lenseus,  Father  Lenaeus  come, 
And,  with  thy  buskins  off,  in  the  new  wine, 
Stain,  thou,  thy  naked  legs  even  with  me." 

And  thus  on  until  our  own  era,  in  which — alas  for 
the  >nutHbility  of  even  god-like  virtues ! — under 
the  title  of  "  The  Worship  of  Bacchus,"  our  vete- 
ran artist,  George  Cruikshank,  has  turned  the 
praises  of  his  brother  artist,  Virgil,  into  scorn,  and 
has  transformed  Pater  Lrsnseus  the  wine  giver, 


2O  On  Alcohol. 

into  the  destroyer  of  every  civilization  over  which 
he  has  become  enthroned. 

It  is  worthy  here  of  special  remark  that  the  in- 
vention of  wine  was  local  on  the  planet,  and  that  it 
came  from  some  centre  of  the  ancient  world  lying 
near  to  those  points  from  whence  our  modern  civi- 
lization took  its  rise.  For  when  that  civilization 
concentrated  itself  into  bands  or  armies,  or  navies, 
for  the  purpose  of  discovering  new  portions  of  the 
earth,  where  other  savage  nations,  as  they  are 
called,  dwell,  it  found  the  wine  god,  the  wine  cup, 
and  the  wine  equally  unknown.  A  good  three- 
quarters  of  the  old  world  knew  no  more  of  wine 
than  of  the  people  who  invented  it,  until  they  were 
taught  to  know  it — then  they  learned  about  it  fast 
enough. 

The  practice  of  exciting  fermentation  and  of  ob- 
taining the  coveted  fermented  liquor  once  known, 
the  knowledge  was  extended,  until  from  varied 
vegetable  substances  wine  became  a  product  ex- 
tracted by  an  art  that  was  successful,  however 
rude.  The  discovery  of  the  ferment,  that  is  to 
say  of  the  body  that  would  produce  fermentation, 
was  sufficient  to  set  'in  mutation  or  intestine  mo- 
tion a  whole  series  of  fermentable  vegetable  sub- 
stances, and  to  extend  the  manufacture  of  various 
vinous  fluids  to  an  unlimited  degree.  From  the 
expressed  juice  of  the  grape  the  transition  was 
easy  to  other  juicy  fruits,  such  as  the  mulberry, 
the  apple,  the  pear,  the  peach :  from  these  again 
to  those  juices  which  exude  from  trees,  as  from 
the  Eastern  palm-tree ;  and  from  these  again  to 
such  similar  looking  substances  as  manna  and 


Fermentation  of  Wine.  21 

honey.  From  fruits,  moreover,  it  was  an  easy 
transition  to  seeds,  and  from  seeds  that  were  soft 
and  succulent  to  seeds  that  were  hard  and  of  the 
character  of  what  we  now  call  grain. 

From  all  these  varied  sources  of  fermentable 
substances  there  was  produced  for  ages  the  fluid 
containing  the  basis  of  alcohol.  Its  most  common 
name  was  wine,  though  the  term  was  modified  by 
adjective  additions  signifying  sometimes  its  color, 
sometimes  the  place  where  it  was  made  or  mar- 
keted. Thus  were  introduced  the  white  and  red 
wines,  the  Vino  Tinto  and  the  golden  unctuous 
Vino  Greco.  Even  after  the  discovery  (of  which 
I  shall  soon  again  opeak)  of  the  existence  of  a  dis- 
tinct essence  or  spirit  in  wine,  the  original  fluid 
held  pre-eminence  over  all  other  strong  drinks,  and 
in  the  early  and  middle  stages  of  civilization  in 
Europe  the  number  of  wines  that  were  used  ex- 
ceeded anything  we  now  have  in  common  use.  In 
the  Appendix  to  these  lectures,  there  will  be  found, 
in  a  table — Table  I. — lists  of  ancient  Roman  wines 
arranged  in  nine  groups. 

As  a  matter  of  some  historical  interest,  it  is  worth 
a  moment  or  two  to  touch  on  the  special  qualities 
of  a  few  of  those  vinous  drinks. 

Certain  of  the  ancient  Roman  wines  of  the  first 
group-  were  home  wines.  The  Falernian,  one  of 
these,  was,  it  is  believed,  something  like  our  modern 
Madeira,  and  was  not  commonly  used  until  it  was 
ten  years  old.  After  it  was  twenty  years  old  it 
affected  the  body  unfavorably,  causing  headache. 
This  was  the  experience  of  Galen. 

Other  wines  were  foreign.    Chian,  also  called 


22  On  Alcohol. 

the  Ariusian,  of  which  there  were  three  varieties — 
austere,  sweet,  and  intermediate — and  the  Lesbian, 
considered  to  be  a  diuretic,  were  of  this  kind. 

Some  wines  were  named  after  their  color,  as 
white,  dark,  and  red.  The  white  were  thought  to 
be  the  thinnest  and  least  heating ;  the  dark-colored 
and  sweet  the  most  nourishing ;  the  red  the  most 
heating. 

Some,  again,  were  named  after  qualities,  of  age, 
and  the  like  :  as  old  (Vetus) ;  new  (Novum) ;  of  the 
present  year  (Hornum) ;  of  three  years  (Trimum) ; 
mellow  (Molle,  Lene,  Vetustate  edentulum) ;  rough 
(Asperum) ;  pure  (Merum) ;  strong  (Fortius). 
'  Certain  wines,  named  Myndian,  Halicarnassian, 
Rhodian,  and  Coan,  were  made  with  salt  water. 
They  were  considered  not  to  be  intoxicating,  but 
to  promote  digestion. 

Two  wines,  Cnidian  and  Adrian,  were  also  me- 
dicinal wines.  The  first,  it  was  believed,  engen- 
dered blood  and  was  at  the  s°me  time  a  laxative ; 
the  second  was  diaphoretic. 

Mustum  was  a  term  applied  to  wine  newly  made, 
or  the  fresh  juice  of  the  grape.  }  Votropum  was  the 
juice  which  runs  from  the  grapes  rvithout  pressing. 
Mulsum  was  a  mixture  of  wine  and  honey.  Sapa 
was  Mustum  boiled  down  to  a  third.  Defrutum 
was  Mustum  reduced  to  half,  and  Cctvnum  was 
the  same  reduced  to  a  third. 

Passum  was  a  sweet  wine,  prepared  from  grapes 
that  had  been  dried  in  the  sun.  Passum  cretinum, 
also  a  sweet  wine,  is  believed  to  have  been  the  same 
as  the  wine  which  our  own  forefathers  called  Malm- 
sey;  the  wine  in  which  the  Duke  of  Clarence 


fermentation  of  Wine.  23 

brother  of   Edward    the   Fourth,  elected    to    be 
drowned. 

A  wine  called  Murrhina,  placed  in  the  last  group 
in  the  Appendix,  has  a  curious  history.  The  Greeks 
had  a  wine  of  this  kind,  which  consisted  of  pure 
win*?  perfumed  with  odorous  substances.  The 
Romans  had  a  wine  similarly  named,  which  is  sup- 
posed to  have  been  wine  mingled  with  myrrh.  It 
was  administered  to  those  who  were  about  to  suffer 
torture,  in  order  to  intoxicate  them  and  to  remove 
the  sense  of  suffering. 

The  ancient  wines  retained  their  place  probably 
until  the  end  of  the  Middle  Ages,  but  we  have  no 
reliable  evidence  bearing  upon  this  point,  if  we  ex- 
cept an  occasional  reference  by  some  poet  or  phy- 
sician to  the  subject  of  wine.  Very  slowly  the 
names,  rather  than  the  wines,  changed  generally. 
The  Roman  conqueror  who  built  his  villa  on  our 
islands,  and  fitted  it  with  so  much  taste  and  means 
of  luxury,  added  to  it  his  wine-cellar,  in  the  manner 
he  had  been  instructed  by  his  forefathers,  and  from 
it  took  out  his  red  and  white  and  old  wine,  as  we 
do  now;  boasting  possibly  of  the  vintage  from 
which  it  was  grown,  and  eloquent  as  to  its  age  and 
perfect  ripeness.  If  he  had  no  old  port,  he  had  old 
Falernian  or  Passum ;  his  rough  and  his  sweet,  his 
light  and  his  heavy  wines,  the  same  as  our  connois- 
seur of  to-day.  But,  perhaps,  he  knew  a  great 
deal  more,  in  the  way  of  fact  about  the  vintages, 
than  his  modern  follower. 

How  the  wines  changed  in  name  through  the 
centuries  will  be  gathered  from  the  lists  of  the 
wines  of  Europe  in  use  in  the  last  century,  collected 


24  On  Alcohol. 

by  the  distinguished  chemist  Neumann,  and  detail- 
ed  in  the  Appendix,  Table  II. 

Some  of  the  wines  mediaeval  and  later  derive  ad- 
ditional names  from  peculiarities  in  themselves. 
Sec,  from  which  we  derive  the  name  of  the  wine 
Sack,  on  which  Sir  John  Falstaff  so  keenly  enjoyed 
himself,  means  dry ;  the  wine  being  made  from  half 
dried  grapes.  Malmsey  was  called  by  the  Italians 
"  Manna  alia  bocca  e  balsamo  al  cervello  " — "  Man- 
na to  the  mouth  and  balsam  to  the  brain." 

From  the  chemist  of  last  century,  Neumann,  who 
has  collected  for  us  such  a  long  list  of  wines,  we 
are  supplied  with  a  very  instructive  table  of  analy- 
ses showing  the  amount  of  spirit  present  in  the 
different  specimens.  The  wines  he  analysed  are 
tabulated  in  alphabetical  order.  I  believe  his  to 
be  the  first  true  chemical  analyses  that  were  ever 
made,  on  an  extensive  and  comparative  scale,  of 
different  wines,  and  if  they  indicate  all  the  spirit  in 
the  wines  named,  it  is  clear  that'  the  amount  of 
spirit  in  them  was  exceedingly  small,  when  com- 
pared with  what  is  present  in  the  wines  of  the 
present  day.  Malmsey,  the  strongest  of  them,  con- 
tained but  about  twelve  per  cent,  of  spirit,  and 
sack  a  little  more  than  half  that  amount.  Falstaflf 
might  readily  drink  at  a  draught  a  pint  of  sack 
that  contained  rather  less  than  seven  and  a  half 
per  cent,  of  spirit. 

BEER. 

The  only  other  diluted  rival  of  wine  ootained 
by  fermentation  was  the  liquid  derived  from  com. 
Tradition,  active  again  in  giving  celestial  origin 


Beer.  25 

to  strong  drinks,  has  assigned  the  introduction  of 
the  art  of  making  this  product  first  to  Osiris,  the 
divinity  of  Egypt,  and  afterwards  to  the  goddess 
Ceres.  The  fluid  thus  produced  became,  in  Saxon 
language,  known  as  beer,  berc,  from  barley,  or 
perhaps  from  the  Hebrew,  bar,  corn.  Tacitus 
calls  it  Zythum.  The  Egyptians,  it  is  said,  made 
it  first  for  the  common  folk  that  they  too  might 
receive  the  gift  of  Osiris.  In  its  original  state 
beer  was  what  we  would  now  call  the  sweet  fluid 
or  wort  fresh  from  the  vat,  and  untinctured  with 
any  additional  substance.  So  it  continued  proba- 
bly until  the  ninth  century,  when  it  began  to  be 
treated  with  the  lupulus,  or  hop.  The  first  men- 
tion of  this  plant  is  made  by  an  Arabian,  named 
Mesue,  of  about  the  year  850,  but  he  does  not  refer 
to  it  in  relation  to  beer.  The  hop  not  only  flavored 
but  tended  to  preserve  the  beer,  and  in  a  few  cen- 
turies it  became  of  general  use.  In  the  reign  of 
Henry  the  Sixth  the  use  of  hops  was  for  a  time 
forbidden,  on  the  ground  that  they  spoiled  the 
beer  and  rendered  it  dangerous.  An  order  pro- 
hibiting hops  and  sulphur  for  beer  was  also  made 
in  the  reign  of  Henry  the  Eighth.  But  the  hops 
at  last  won  their  way.  It  is  worthy  of  notice  that 
Neumann,  who  analysed  the  beers  of  last  century, 
as  well  as  the  wines,  found  that  the  beers  contained 
an  amount  of  spirit  varying  from  5  per  cent,  in  the 
weakest,  to  10.90  per  cent,  in  the  strongest  kinds. 
The  malt  liquors  of  the  last  century  were,  it  ap- 
pears from  this,  of  much  the  same  strength  as 
those  of  the  present. 
Thus  in  the  history  of  alcohol  the  first  step  of 


26  On  Alcohol. 

i 

discovery  was  that  of  its  production  from  vege- 
table matter  by  the  process  of  fermentation.  As 
so  produced  it  was  a  mixture  of  that  which  we 
now  call  pure  spirit,  or  alcohol,  with  water,  and 
with  small  quantities  of  other  extraneous  substances 
of  minor  moment. 

On  the  nature  of  the  fermentative  change  by 
which  the  juice  of  the  fruit,  or  the  exuded  fluid  of 
the  plant  or  tree,  or  the  seed  or  the  sweet  sugar, 
is  transformed  into  the  new  product,  speculation 
has  been  rife  for  a  hundred  years  at  least.  In  this 
day  the  atomic  constitution  of  water,  of  alcohol, 
and  of  the  substances  which  yield  alcohol  are 
known,  and  the  atomic  change  of  constitution  that 
takes  place  is  known ;  but  the  reason  of  the  pro- 
cess is,  according  to  my  judgment,  as  little  under- 
stood as  it  was  when  the  discussion  began.  Prob- 
ably, indeed,  the  latest  theories  that  have  been 
advanced  are  rather  a  retrogression,  by  a  line  of 
learned  subtleties,  from  the  earlier  views,  than  an 
approach  to  simplicity  of  truth.  I  do  not,  there- 
fore, venture  to  trouble  you  with  any  description 
on  this  head.  One  word  I  would  add  in  the  way 
of  a  guard  against  misuse  of  terms  from  assumed 
analogies.  We  often  hear  processes  described  as 
fermentative,  which  in  truth  have  no  relation,  by 
any  proved  physical  argument,  with  the  true  pro- 
cess of  fermentation  of  vegetable  matter  connected 
with  the  production  of  wine.  To  take  one  exam- 
ple ;  we  speak  commonly  of  the  zymotic  or  fer- 
mentative diseases,  applying  the  term  to  those 
maladies  which,  in  the  form  of  contagious  fevers, 
become  epidemic.  Hence  many  are  led  to  believe 


Distillation.  27 

that  in  these  diseases  there  is  in  the  body  an 
actual  fermentation  like  that  in  wine  or  beer;  a 
comparison  no  closer,  according  to  our  knowledge 
as  it  now  actually  exists,  than  might  be  instituted 
between  the  same  process  and  the  so  called  fer- 
ment of  a  mob  when  it  assembles  to  give  vent  to 
its  turbulent  rage. 

DISTILLATION. 

I  have  said  that  for  many  centuries  there  was 
nothing  known  to  mankind  beyond  the  formation 
of  a  vinous  fluid.  At  length"  a  new  process  was 
brought  to  bear  on  wine,  which  simple  as  it  is  to 
us  now,  was  in  its  early  days,  and  for  many  long 
days  afterwards,  a  wonder  and  a  mystery.  This 
was  the  simple  act  of  distilling  wine,  and  of  obtain- 
ing from  it  by  distillation  a  fine  spirit  containing 
no  water.  The  discovery  of  distillation  of  wine 
has  been  attributed  to  Albucasis,  or  Casa,  an 
Arabian  chemist  and  physician  of  the  eleventh 
century.  The  evidence  on  this  point  is  not  very 
convincing.  It  is  true  that  the  refined  body  called 
spirit  of  wine  began  to  be  known  in  alchemical 
and  Arabian  schools  about  or  soon  after  the  time 
of  Casa,  and  from  that  circumstance,  rather  than 
from  direct  evidence  derived  from  his  works,  the 
discovery  has  probably  been  imputed  to  him. 
However,  it  is  historically  correct  that  from  the 
school  of  Albucasis  the  discovery  sprang.  The 
alchemists  or  adepts  were  conversant  with  pure 
spirit,  and,  says  Boerhaave,  when  they  had  reduc- 
ed it  to  the  utmost  subtlety,  they  made  use  of  it 
in  the  preparations  of  all  their  secret  menstruums. 


28  On  Alcohol. 

DistiLation  itself  was  probably  an  imitation  of 
nature,  for  nature  is  ever  distilling  and  condens- 
ing-. In  the  cold,  water  condenses  on  the  leaf  and 
on  the  grass,  as  dew,  and  ascends  as  vapor  in  the 
sun.  This  process  of  raising  water  into  a  state  of 
vapor  by  heat,  and  condensing  it  by  cold,  the 
simplest  of  immediate  imitations  of  nature,  would 
by  easy  transition  pass  to  other  liquids,  and  with 
special  ease  to  that  liquid  which  has  rivalled  water 
ai  a  drink  for  man — wine. 

The  pure  spirit  of  wine  in  its  earlier  use  was 
applied  mainly  to  chemical  and  medicinal  pur- 
poses, and  indeed  many  centuries  elapsed  before 
the  process  of  distillation  became  active  for  the 
production  of  those  stronger  drinks,  which,  under 
the  name  of  "  spirits,"  are  now  in  such  common 
use  in  daily  life.  Brandy  from  brennen,  to  burn  ; 
thus  Branntwein,  brandy,  is  a  comparatively  late 
term  in  European  literature.  Gin,  contracted 
from  Geneva,  is  not  to  be  found  as  signifying  a 
spirituous  drink  in  our  vocabularies  of  two  hun- 
dred years  ago.  The  term  rum  is  assigned  to  the 
native  American  peoples,  who  so  designated  the 
vinous  spirit  distilled  from  sugar ;  and  whiskey 
(Celtic  uisge,  water),  though  it  may  have  been 
known  as  a  distilled  drink  as  long  as  Branntwein, 
has  not  been  Anglicised,  I  believe,  for  more  than 
a  century  and  a  half.  Some  further  notes  on  this 
subject  by  Mr.  Stanford  will  be  found  in  the  Ap- 
pendix. 

In  the  earlier  modes  of  distillation  the  instru- 
ments used  were  simple  but  effective.  They  con- 
sisted of  the  furnace,  the  receptacle  to  the  furnace, 


Distillation*  29 

the  receiver  which  stood  within  the  receptacle, 
and  the  alembic  or  condenser,  which  was  made  of 
tin  or  other  metal. 

The  ancient  alembic,  the  use  of  which  is  still 
valued,  was,  in  truth,  a  very  scientific  instru- 
ment, and  caused  a  perfect  collection  of  the  dis- 
tilled fluid.  The  spirit  from  the  crude  wine 
ascended  from  a  heated  reservoir  into  a  conical 
tube,  and  then  downwards  through  a  returning 
exit  tube  into  a  receiver. 

The  adepts  were,  indeed,  marvellously  mechani- 
cal, and  when  we  recall  that  they  neither  had  cork 
nor  elastic  tubing,  nor  gas,  we  wonder  by  what 
clever  devices  they  were  so  successful.  They  had 
many  useful  arts,  I  am  sure,  which  we  have  im- 
properly forgotten,  and  which  might  with  advan- 
tage be  revived.  Some  of  their  instruments,  for  a 
long  time  thought  to  be  fanciful  and  useless,  are 
being  again  considered  of  value.  One  of  these 
was  called  a  cohobator,  and  another  called  a  cir- 
culator, in  which  they  caused  spirits  to  boil  and 
distil,  and  condense  and  distil  again,  for  months  at 
a  time.  The  fluids  went  round  and  round  in  the 
circulator  like  the  wheel  of  fortune,  and  many  an 
adept  has  looked  upon  his  fortune  as  spinning  in 
that  wheel,  from  which  the  elixir  of  life  and  the 
philosopher's  stone  were,  in  his  ardent  imagina- 
tion, to  be  evolved. 

To  sum  up,  let  us  remember  the  four  stages  in 
the  general  history  of  alcohol,  from  the  first  to 
the  time  when  it  came  strictly  under  analytical 
chemical  observation ;  and,  in  regard  to  common 
knowledge,  to  the  present  time. 


30  On  Alcohol. 

(a.)  The  stage  of  manufacture  of  wine  or  beer 
by  fermentation.  A  stage  extending  from  the 
earliest  history  until  the  time  of  the  adepts,  say 
about  the  eleventh  century  of  the  Christian  era. 

(&.)  A  stage  when  there  was  distilled  from  the 
wine  a  lighter  spirit  called,  first,  spirit  of  wine,  and 
afterwards  alcohol. 

(c.)  A  stage  when  this  subtile  or  distilled  spirit 
from  wine  was  applied  in  its  refined  and  pure  state 
to  the  arts  and  to  the  sciences. 

(d.)  A  stage  when  this  same  process  of  distilla- 
tion was  applied  to  the  production  of  alcoholic 
spirits  for  the  use  of  man  as  spirituous  drinks, 
under  the  names  of  brandy,  gin,  whiskey,  rum, — a 
stage  comparatively  modern. 

USES    OF   WINE. 

We  will,  if  you  please,  leave  now,  for  a  time,  the 
consideration  of  wine  and  alcohol  as  drinks,  and 
dwell  briefly  on  the  uses  to  which  these  fluids  have 
been  applied  for  other  purposes.  The  study  is 
peculiarly  interesting,  and  I  could  easily  carry 
you  on  during  the  whole  course  of  these  lectures 
with  the  narration  of  it.  Unfortunately  every 
word  I  have  to  say  must  be  introduced  into  this 
hour,  so  that  I  can  refer  only  to  the  salient  points, 
and  to  a  few  only  of  these. 

From  the  first,  the  preservative  or  antiseptic 
quality  of  wine  was  recognised,  and  the  fluid  was 
employed  for  the  preservation  of  animal  and  vege- 
table substances.  The  Roman  butchers,  who,  like 
our  modern  butchers,  sold  their  fresh  and  their 
salted  meats,  prepared  their  salted  flesh  in  the  fol- 


Uses  of  Wine.  31 

lowing  manner: — The  animals  they  intended  to 
preserve  were  kept  from  drinking  any  fluid  on  the 
eve  of  the  day  on  which  the  killing  took  place. 
After  the  killing  the  parts  to  be  preserved  were 
boned  and  sprinkled  lightly  with  pounded  salt. 
Then,  having  well  dried  off  all  dampness,  the 
operators  sprinkled  more  salt,  and  placed  the 
pieces  so  as  not  to  touch  each  other,  in  vessels 
that  had  been  used  for  oil  or  vinegar.  Over  the 
whole  they  poured  sweet  wine,  covered  the  con- 
tents of  the  vessel  with  straw,  and,  when  they 
could,  kept  down  the  temperature  of  the  room  in 
which  the  vessel  was  placed  by  sprinkling  snow 
around.  When  the  cook  wished  to  remove  the 
salt  from  the  meat,  he  took  it  out  of  the  wine  and 
boiled  it  first  in  milk  and  afterwards  in  rain 
water. 

Long  previous  to  the  Roman  era  this  preserva- 
tive process  of  wine  had  been  recognised  and 
applied.  Palm  wine  was  used  by  the  Egyptians  in 
their  most  costly  processes  of  embalming  the  bodies 
of  the  dead.  This  same  application  of  wine,  or  spirits 
of  wine,  for  the  preservation  of  animal  and  also 
of  vegetable  substances,  has  been  maintained  up 
to  our  time.  In  our  museums  the  specimens 
therein  preserved,  in  the  moist  state,  are  im- 
mersed in  spirit,  and  the  modern  art  of  embalm- 
ing is  not  perfected  without  the  employment  of 
the  same  antiseptic  agent. 

Early  after  the  discovery  of  the  properties  of 
wine  the  fact  must  have  been  observed  that  from 
a  change  in  it  another  substance  was  produced,  to 
which,  in  these  davs,  we  give  the  name  of  vinegar. 


32  On  Alcohol. 

To  prevent  the  formation  of  vinegar  in  wine,  the 
ancients  boiled  the  wine,  and  to  remove  the  acidity 
arising  from  vinegar  they  added  gypsum  to  sour 
wine,  and  thus  rendered  it  palatable.  Vinegar 
itself  they  employed  for  purposes  precisely  the 
same  as  we  in  this  day ;  they  partook  of  it  with 
vegetables,  they  employed  it  for  preservation  of 
animal  and  vegetable  substances,  and  they  applied 
it  for  numerous  medicinal  purposes.  After  the 
process  of  distillation  was  discovered  by  the 
adepts,  the  distillation  of  vinegar  was  also  carried 
on,  and  in  this  way  was  obtained  that  strong  vine- 
gar, which  enters  so  largely  into  various  uses  as 
an  acid,  called  aromatic  vinegar. 

Very  early  in  history  wine  was  employed  for 
another  purpose,  that,  namely,  of  extracting  the 
active  principles  from  plants  and  other  substances 
possessing,  or  supposed  to  possess,  medicinal  vir- 
tues. Dioscorides,  one  of  the  fathers  of  medicine, 
and  particularly  of  that  part  which  pertains  to  the 
use  of  curative  substances,  or  medicaments  proper, 
is  full  of  descriptions  of  vinous  tinctures,  some  of 
which  were  sufficiently  potent  even  for  our  pre- 
sent use.  A  vinous  tincture  of  this  kind  has  a  very 
singular  and,  I  had  almost  said,  romantic  history. 
This  is  the  wine  of  Mandragora.  In  the  Isles  of 
Greece  there  has  grown  for  ages  a  plant  called 
mandrake ;  it  belongs  to  the  same  family  of  plants 
as  our  belladonna,  or  deadly  nightshade.  From 
the  root  of  this  plant  the  Greeks  extracted,  by 
means  of  wine,  a  narcotic,  and  what  in  this  day  we 
should  call  an  anaesthetic.  Some,  says  our  learned 
Dioscorides,  boil  the  root  in  the  wine  down  to  a 


Uses  of  Wine.  33 

third  part  and  preserve  the  decoction,  of  which 
they  administer  a  cyathus  (about  what  would  now 
be  a  common  wineglassful),  for  want  of  sleep,  or 
for  severe  pains  of  any  part,  and  also  before  ope- 
rations with  the  knife  or  cautery,  that  these  may 
not  be  felt.  Again,  he  says,  a  wine  is  prepared 
from  the  bark  without  boiling,  and  three  pounds 
of  it  are  put  into  a  cadus  (about  eighteen  gallons) 
of  sweet  wine,  and  three  cyathi  of  this  are  given 
to  those  who  are  cut  or  cauterised,  when,  being 
thrown  into  a  deep  sleep,  they  do  not  feel  any 
pain.  Again,  he  speaks  of  a  preparation  of  man- 
dragora  called  morion,  which  causes  infatuation  and 
takes  away  the  reason.  Under  the  influence  of 
this  agent  the  person  sleeps,  without  sense,  in  the 
attitude  in  which  he  took  it,  for  three  or  four 
hours  afterwards.  Pliny,  the  Roman  historian, 
bears  evidence,  much  later,  to  the  same  effect,  and 
adds  the  singular  remark  that  some  persons  have 
sought  sleep  from  the  smell  of  this  medicine.  And 
again,  Lucius  Apuleius,  the  author  of  the  book 
called  the  '  Golden  Ass,'  who  lived  about  160  A.D., 
and  of  whose  works  eleven  editions  were  repub- 
lished  in  the  fourteenth  and  fifteenth  centuries, 
says  that  if  a  man  has  to  have  a  limb  mutilated, 
sawn,  or  burnt,  he  may  take  half  an  ounce  of  man- 
dragora  in  wine,  and  whilst  he  sleeps  the  member 
may  be  cut  off  without  pain  or  sense. 

It  is  unquestionably  to  this  same  anaesthetic 
our  own  Shakespeare  refers  in  his  half-im- 
,  half-legendary  Middle  Age  history.  This 
Is  the  wine  of  that  insane  root,  which,  says  Mac- 
beth, "takes  the  reason  prisoner."  This  is  the 


34  On  Alcohol. 

wine  that  Juliet  drinks,  and  the  action  of  which 
the  Friar  Lawrence  describes — 

"  Through  all  thy  veins  shall  run 
A  cold  and  drowsy  humor,  which  shall  seize 
Each  vital  spirit ;  for  no  pulse  shall  keep 
His  natural  progress,  but  surcease  to  beat : 
No  warmth,  no  breath,  shall  testify  thou  liv'st ; 
The  roses  in  thy  lips  and  cheeks  shall  fade 
To  paly  ashes  ;  thy  eyes'  windows  fall, 
Like  death  when  he  shuts  up  the  day  of  life ; 
Each  part,  deprived  of  supple  government, 
Shall  stiff,  and  stark,  and  cold  appear  like  death: 
And  in  this  borrow'd  likeness  of  shrunk  death 
Thou  shalt  remain  full  two  and  forty  hours, 
And  then  awake  as  from  a  pleasant  sleep." 

It  follows  therefore  from  the  history  of  scientific 
discovery  that  our  modern  great  advance  of  re- 
moving pain  during  surgical  operations  is  in  fact, 
if  not  as  old  as  the  hills,  as  old  almost  as  wine. 
But  is  the  story  true,  you  say  ?  I  answer  Yes, 
and  the  answer  is  from  experiment.  Thinking  it 
a  subject  of  very  great  interest,  I  instituted,  a  few 
years  ago,  an  inquiry  into  the  matter.  Through 
the  kindness  of  my  friend,  the  late  Mr.  Daniel 
Hanbury,  F.R.S.,  I  obtained  a  fine  specimen  of 
mandragora  root,  and  I  made  once  again,  after  a 
lapse  of  probably  five  centuries,  Mandragora  wine. 
I  tested  this,  and  found  it  was  a  narcotic  having 
precisely  the  properties  that  were  anciently  as- 
cribed to  it.  I  found  that  in  animals  it  would  pro- 
duce even  the  sleep  of  Juliet,  not  for  thirty  or  forty 
hours,  a  term  that  must  be  accepted  as  a  poetical 
licence,  but  for  the  four  hours  named  by  Diosco- 
rides  easily,  and  that  in  awakening  there  was  ao 


Uses  of  Spirit  of  Wine  or  Alcohol.  35 

excitement  which  tallies  with  the  same  phenome- 
non that  was  observed  by  the  older  physicians. 

Thus,  one  of  the  first  uses  of  wine  to  man  was 
amongst  the  most  noble  and  beneficent  that  man 
by  his  ingenuity  can  confer  on  his  kind,  and  if 
wine  had  ever  been  used  in  this  way  and  in  none 
worse,  Pater  Lenseus  might  have  retained  his  su- 
premacy in  the  good  opinion  of  all  the  world. 

Besides  using  wine  for  extracting  the  virtues  of 
the  vegetable  kingdom,  our  ancient  chemists  tested 
it  on  metals  and  made  it  here  subservient  to  their 
purpose.  What  they  called  the  extract  of  Mars 
was  a  solution  of  iron,  made  with  an  astringent 
wine,  and  reduced  into  a  thick  consistency  by  fire. 
Eight  ounces  of  the  rust  of  iron,  powdered  very 
fine,  were  put  into  an  iron  pot  and  covered  with 
four  pints  of  strong  red  wine.  The  iron  crucible 
was  then  set  on  the  fire,  and  the  mixture,  stirred 
with  an  iron  rod,  was  boiled  to  a  third :  then  it 
was  strained  through  a  cloth  and  evaporated  into 
an  extract.  To  this  extract  wonderful  curative 
powers  were  ascribed,  and  indeed  it  was  a  very 
useful  medicine.  The  metal  antimony  also  was 
subjected  to  the  action  of  wine.  The  so  called 
liver  of  antimony  was  treated  with  white  wine  and 
dissolved  in  it,  and  to  this  day  we  retain  the  reme- 
dy. It  was  originally  called  the  emetic  wine. 

USES   OF   SPIRIT   OF  WINE   OR  ALCOHOL. 

After  the  process  of  distillation  of  wine  was  dis- 
covered, the  use  of  the  new  spirit  rose  rapidly  into 
application  in  a  variety  of  ways.  The  adepts,  the 


36  On  Alcohol. 

Middle  Age  chemists  of  whom  I  have  spoken,  kept 
this  distilled  spirit  long  a  secret.  They  found  in  it 
a  solvent  for  many  things  that  before  were  insolu- 
ble. Oils,  resins,  gum  resins,  balsams  were  now 
brought  into  a  medium  that  acted  towards  them 
as.  a  menstruum,  and  straightway  they  were  dis- 
solved. The  East  Indian  Styrax  Benzoin  yielded 
a  balsam  which,  dissolved  in  the  distilled  spirit, 
was  a  fortune  to  the  chemists.  The  Commander's 
balsam,  or  balsam  for  wounds,  or  Friar's  balsam, 
was  soon  the  reputed  heal-all  of  every  injury. 

The  useful  extracted  first  out  of  the  new  distil- 
late, beauty  was  next  remembered.  Alas  for  the 
female  face  divine,  the  cosmetic  and  the  subtile 
wash  that  should  veritably  make  young  faces  old 
and  assumably  make  old  faces  young,  were  soon  in 
process  in  the  laboratory  of  the  adept  who  could 
distil  wine.  Again,  the  artist  came  in  for  a  share 
in  the  discovery.  The  once  insoluble  and  the  use- 
less resins  and  ambers  were  dissolved  for  his  brush, 
and  gave  him  coatings,  preservatives,  and  wash- 
ings, of  which  previously  he  had  no  conception. 

This  spirit  of  wine  burns.  It  does  not  touch  oil 
for  the  light  it  gives,  but  how  strange !  it  burns 
away  without  a  trace  of  smoke,  and  with  an  excel- 
lent heat.  So  the  spirit  lamp  in  due  time  is  in- 
vented. A  trifle,  say  you  ?  Nay,  it  was  as  great 
an  advance  to  the  chemist  who  first  used  it  as  the 
gas  in  the  Bunsen  burner  is  to  us. 

Once  more  :  this  subtle  spirit  has  in  it  the  virtue 
of  preserving  all  organic  substances  with  which  it 
is  brought  in  contact.  It  masters  putrefaction  it* 
self;  perchance  the  elixir  of  life  is  therefore  found* 


Uses  of  Spirit  of  Wine  or  Alcohol.  37 

It  dissolves  insoluble  bodies  ;  perchance  it  \vill  by 
careful  study  and  experiment  reveal  the  grand 
secret  of  transmutation.  In  this  way  reasoned  its 
first  masters. 

I  must  not  dwell  longer  over  these  details  of 
minor  things  of  major  usefulness.  I  must  turn  to 
some  applications  of  our  refined  spirit  which  are 
major  in  fact  as  well  as  in  use,  in  theory  as  well  as 
in  practice,  in  science  as  well  as  in  art.  In  this  re- 
gard we  have  to  consider  alcohol  as  the  basis  of 
other  essences  not  less  potent  than  itself. 

The  process  of  distillation  of  essences  from  liquids 
and  from  vegetable  substances  once  established,  it 
was  but  natural  that  some  adept  should  turn  his 
hand  to  mineral  bodies  and  try  if  they  would  not 
yield  some  new  product  that  should  be  of  effective 
and  novel  quality.  Into  the  distillatory  soon  pass, 
therefore,  all  manner  of  'things,  from  the  horn  of 
the  stag  or  hart,  to  the  skull  and  brain  of  the  dead 
man.  Among  other  substances  there  was  submit- 
ted to  distillation  the  green  stony  crystal  found  in 
the  earth,  and  called  green  vitriol,  in  Latin  vitrio- 
lum.  The  result  of  the  distillation  of  this  vitriolum 
was  to  obtain  as  a  yield,  in  the  retort,  the  heavy 
oily  corrosive  fluid  called,  originally,  spirit  of  vit- 
riol, called  now  oil  of  vitriol  or  sulphuric  acid. 

Many  were  the  fanciful  things  thought  of  by  the 
adepts  concerning  this  oil,  and  even  to  the  letters 
of  which  the  word  vitriolum  is  made  up  they 
attached  a  mystical  symbolism.  In  course  of 
time  they  began  to  combine  and  to  distil  other 
fluids  with  the  corrosive  sulphurous  oil,  and 
amongst  the  first  of  fluids  used  in  this  manner 


38  '  On  Alcohol. 

stood  spirit  of  wine.  The  experiment,  did  not  de- 
ceive them,  for  it  gave  them  as  a  product  one  of 
the  most  useful  and  wonderful  of  liquids.  To  them 
this  new  liquid  as  it  first  was  taken  from  the  retort 
was  an  infinite  marvel.  They  poured  it  on  water 
and  it  floated,  on  spirit  and  it  floated.  They 
poured  it  into  their  hands,  and,  lo !  it  boiled  there. 
It  escaped  from  them  into  an  invisible  state  or  air 
before  they  could  well  bottle  it ;  it  burned  and  ex- 
ploded. It  caused,  when  it  passed  off  from  the 
surface  of  the  living  body,  an  intense  cold.  It  dis- 
solved wax,  oil,  fat,  gums,  resins,  balsams,  and  yet 
when  it  was  set  free  it  let  them  fall  again.  It  was 
so  light  that  a  measure  which  would  hold  ten 
pounds  weight  of  water  would  only  hold  seven 
pounds  of  this  light  intangible  liquid.  What  name 
shall  they  apply  to  this  substance,  the  lightest 
known  ?  They  designate  it  by  a  term  indicating 
the  lightest  thing  they  can  conceive :  they  com- 
pare it  with  the  refined  medium,  with  which  the 
philosophers  imagine  the  firmament  to  be  filled, 
and  they  give  it  the  same  name.  They  call  it 
(Btlier. 

Of  what  strange  after-use  this  magical  fluid  has 
been  to  man  we  all  know.  It  was  introduced  early 
into  medicine,  and  was  well  studied  last  century 
by  Dr.  Ward,  and  by  Mr.  Turner,  of  Liverpool. 
In  our  own  time,  it  has  been  discovered  to  have 
the  power  of  suspending  sensation  and  sensibility 
after  being  inhaled  by  the  lungs,  and  by  its  means 
there  has  been  re-introduced  to  the  world  that 
beneficent  and  long  lost  art  of  rendering  the  body 
Insensible  to  pain  during  surgical  operations. 


Uses  of  Spirit  of  Wine  or  Alcohol.  39 

More  recently  by  a  study  of  the  application  of 
ether  for  the  production  of  intense  cold,  I  myself 
introduced  that  local  use  of  it  for  benumbing  the 
body,  called  the  ether  spray. 

The  value  of  this  secondary  alcohol  to  man  is 
indeed  inestimable.  You  know  how  valuable  it 
has  been  in  photography  as  the  volatile  solvent  of 
collodion,  and  in  other  various  departments  of  the 
fine  and  useful  arts  it  has  rendered  equally  good 
service. 

From  the  distillation  of  vitriolum  our  adepts  soon 
passed  to  other  solid  substances.  They  distilled 
saltpetre,  and  so  got  the  spirit  of  nitre,  which  we 
call  now  nitric  acid ;  they  distilled  common  salt  in 
combination  with  oil  of  vitriol,  and  so  got  spirit 
of  salts  (marine  acid),  which  we  call  hydrochloric 
acid.  Again,  with  these  new  spirits  they  distilled 
spirits  of  wine  to  obtain  new  ethers,  nitrous  and 
marine.  Then  a  chemist,  the  Count  de  Laura- 
gnais,  distilled  together  acetic  acid  and  spirit  of 
wine,  by  which  process  he  obtained  acetous  ether. 
Thus  by  these  double  actions,  a  numerous  series 
of  useful  ethers  has  been  obtained,  it  were  too  long 
for  me  to  enumerate. 

From  the  observation  of  the  fermentation  of  wine 
we  derive,  in  a  certain  sense,  our  first  knowledge 
of  gases.  Van  Helmont  gave  to  the  gas  which 
comes  from  the  fermenting  of  vegetable  matter 
the  name  of  gas  sylvestre,  and  from  this  may  be 
dated  the  origin  of  the  study  of  these  invisible 
form's  of  matter.  Priestley  made  some  of  his  eariy 
observations  on  the  gas  which  escaped  from  fer- 
menting malt  in  a  brewery  at  Warrington,  and  was 


4O  On 

led  step  by  step  to  the  liberation  of  gases  from 
mineral  and  earthy  substances,  and  so  to  the  dis- 
covery of  oxygen.  Upon  that  discovery,  coupled 
with  his  method  of  collecting  gases  by  displace- 
ment of  water,  and  of  trying  their  qualities,  came 
the  process  of  distilling  and  collecting  a  gas  from 
coal,  and  thus  coal  gas. 

After  the  discovery  of  the  element  known  as 
chlorine,  and  of  the  compounds  of  that  element 
with  other  elements,  another  new  era  was  opened 
in  the  history  of  alcohol.  By  passing  chlorine 
through  alcohol,  Liebig  obtained  that  narcotic  sub- 
stance which  we  call  chloral  hydrate  ;  and  by  treat- 
ing alcohol  with  chloride  of  lime,  the  same  great 
experimentalist  produced  for  us  chloroform,  an 
agent  which  has  rivalled  ether  in  its  service  as  a 
soother  and  saver  of  pain.  A  glance  at  the  table — 
No.  IV.  of  the  Appendix — of  anaesthetics  or  sleep 
producers  wj.ll  show  by  the  names  in  italics  those 
substances  which  come  from  alcohol.  All  that 
have  proved  of  most  use  excepting  one,  nitrous 
oxide  or  laughing  gas,  have  this  common  origin. 

Had  the  time  not  been  expended,  I  could  have 
brought  before  you  further  illustration  upon  illus- 
tration of  these  secondary  uses  of  alcohol  to  man ; 
but  I  must  stop,  content  in  having  recalled  to  your 
minds  some  of  the  more  striking  facts  in  the  his- 
tory of  the  curious  and  important  agent  which  is 
now  the  subject  of  our  studies. 


LECTURE   II. 

THE  ALCOHOL  GROUP  OF  ORGANIC  BODIES — 
ACTIONS   OF  DIFFERENT  ALCOHOLS. 

IF  before  a  chemist  of  a  hundred  years  ago  you 
could  have  placed  a  specimen  of  spirit  of  wine  or 
alcohol,  and  could  have  asked  him  of  what  it  was 
composed,  he  would  have  told  you  that  it  was  the 
element  of  water  combined  with  elementary  fire, 
to  which  elementary  fire  he  would  give  the  name 
of  phlogiston,  a  name  derived  from  a  Greek  word 
signifying  to  burn  or  inflame.  He  would  tell  you 
that  all  bodies  that  burned  were  phlogisticated, 
and  that  bodies  that  would  not  burn  were  dephlo- 
gisticated.  The  substance  that  was  left  behind 
was,  he  would  probably  add,  the  element  with 
which  the  elementary  fire  had  previously  been 
combined.  Were  you  to  ask  him  whence  he  de- 
rived this  knowledge,  he  would  say,  "from  the 
greatest  chemist  who  had  ever  lived  before  his 
time,  George  Ernest  Stahl,  Professor  of  Medicine, 
Anatomy,  and  Chemistry  in  the  University  of 
Halle,  who  had  died  in  Berlin,  whither  he  had 
gone  to  be  physician  to  the  King  of  Prussia,  forty 
years  ago." 

As  proof  that  alcohol  was  elementary  water 
combined  with  phlogiston,  our  ancient  chemist 
would  probably  show  you  this  experiment: — Ho 


42  On  Alcohol. 

would  place  a  portion  of  the  spirit  in  a  cup,  would 
set  fire  to  the  spirit,  and  would  invert  over  the 
flame  a  glass  vessel,  shaped  almost  like  a  common 
globe,  which  he  would  call  a  cucurbit,  into  which 
he  would  allow  the  flame  to  ascend.  He  would 
indicate  that  within  the  glass  vessel  a  vapor,  derived 
from  the  burning  fluid,  formed  and  condensed,  as 
you  see  it  forming  and  condensing  now.  Collect- 
ing this  fluid,  he  would  prove  to  you  that  it  was 
water,  which  water  he  could  show  to  be  nothing 
else  but  one  indivisible  thing,  therefore  an  element. 
Thus  his  demonstration  would  be  complete.  The 
element,  while  it  existed  as  spirit,  yielded  fire  on 
burning ;  it  was  fire  water.  The  fire  was  con- 
densed with  the  water.  Nothing  could  be  plainer, 
according  to  his  light  of  science. 

If  you  had  inquired  of  the  chemist  whether  he  had 
any  symbol  by  which  to  denote  elementary  water  or 
spirit,  he  would  give  you,  as  a  symbol  for  water,  a 
sign  something  like  the  letter  V,  with  two  wavy 
lines  following  the  letters ;  and  for  spirit  of  wine,  a 
sign  like  the  letter  V  with  the  letter  $  in  the  centre, 
as  I  put  it  on  the  blackboard ;  and  if  once  more 
you  questioned  him  as  to  whether  his  laboratory 
contained  any  similar  chemical  substance,  he  would 
answer — none.  Spirit  of  wine  stood  by  itself  a 
pure  substance,  possessing  single  and  special  vir- 
tues. 

If,  passing  over  the  intervening  hundred  years, 
you  asked  the  chemist  of  to-day,  "  What  is  alco- 
hol?" he  would  tell  you  that  it  was  an  organic 
radical  called  ethyl,  combined  with  the  elements 
of  water.  He  would  explain  that  water  was  no 


The  Alcohol  Group  of  Organic  Bodies.        43 

longer  considered  to  be  an  element,  but  to  be  com- 
posed of  two  elements,  called  hydrogen  and  oxy- 
gen, two  equivalents  of  hydrogen  being  combined 
in  it  with  one  equivalent  of  oxygen.  He  would 
inform  you  that  the  radical  he  had  called  ethyl  was 
a  compound  of  carbon  and  hydrogen,  and  he  would 
add  that  this  radical  in  alcohol  took  the  place  of 
one  of  the  equivalents  of  hydrogen  of  water.  He 
thereupon  would  give  you  symbols  for  water  and 
alcohol,  but  symbols  of  a.  very  different  kind  to 
those  presented  by  his  learned  predecessor.  He 
would  express  the  names  of  the  elements  compos- 
ing the  water  and  spirit  by  the  first  letters  of  their 
names,  and  add  their  equivalents,  or  parts,  by  fig- 
ures attached  to  the  letters.  Thus  his  symbol  for 
water  would  be  H2O ;  for  the  radical  ethyl,  C2H5 ; 
and  for  alcohol  (C2H5)  HO  or  C2H6O. 

Were  you  interested  about  the  theory  of  phlo- 
giston, invented  by  the  illustrious  George  Ernest 
Stahl,  your  modern  guide  would  instruct  you  that 
the  theory  had  long  since  been  discarded,  and  that 
towards  the  latter  part  of  the  last  century  the  very 
books  of  its  discoverer  had  been  burned,  in  derision, 
by  a  priestess  of  science  in  one  of  the  temples  of 
science  in  Paris.  Then  through  what  a  wonderful 
history  of  discovery  during  the  hundred  years  he 
would,  if  he  liked,  lead  you.  Into  this  cucurbit  in 
which  I  burned  the  alcohol,  and  which  you  will 
observe  I  closed  by  placing  it  with  its  mouth 
downwards  upon  the  table,  he  would  pour  clear 
lime  water  as  I  do  now;  he  would  shake  the 
water  round  the  sides  of  the  cucurbit  and  see,  as 
he  did  it,  the  water  would  become  milky  white. 


44  On  Alcohol. 

This  phenomenon  he  would  indicate  was  due  to 
the  presence  of  a  gas  which  the  old  chemist  had 
actually  collected  but  had  overlooked.  That  gas 
is  carbonic  acid.  It,  as  well  as  the  water,  was  tlie 
product  of  the  combustion  of  the  spirit,  and  it 
now,  in  combination  with  the  lime  water,  has 
united  with  the  lime,  forming  carbonate  of  lime  or 
chalk.  Following  the  history  of  this  gas,  called 
once  fixed  air,  because  it  could  thus  be  fixed  by 
lime  and  other  substances,  he  would  show  how  it 
had  been  proved  to  consist  of  carbon  and  oxygen ; 
how  it  is  given  off  from  the  burning  of  bodies  con- 
taining carbon ;  and  how  a  French  chemist  of  the 
last  century,  named  Lavoisier,  traced  out  by  analy- 
sis that,  in  fermentation,  the  juice  of  grapes  is 
changed  from  being  sweet  and  full  of  sugar  into  a 
vinous  liquor,  which  no  longer  contains  any  sugar, 
the  inflammable  liquor  known  as  spirit  of  wine. 
Thence  it  would  be  shown  that  the  same  illustrious 
chemist,  making  an  analysis  of  sugar  and  studying 
the  effects  of  yeast  in  causing  fermentation  of 
sugar,  collected  and  weighed  the  elements  pro- 
duced, determined  the  elementary  composition  of 
spirit  as  consisting  of  carbon,  hydrogen,  and  oxy- 
gen, and  from  his  research  announced  the  new 
principle  in  chemistry,  that  in  all  the  operations  in 
art  and  nature  nothing  is  created ;  that  an  equal 
quantity  of  matter  exists  both  before  and  after  the 
experiment ;  that  the  quality  and  quantity  of  the 
elements  remain  precisely  the  same  ;  that  nothing 
takes  place  beyond  changes  and  modifications  in 
the  combinations  of  the  elements  ;  and  that  in 
every  chemical  experiment  an  exact  equality  must 


The  Alcohol  Group  of  Organic  Bodies.        45 

be  supposed  between  the  elements  of  the  body  ex- 
amined, and  those  of  the  products  of  its  analysis. 
Finally,  on  this  head,  he  would  state  the  theory  of 
Lavoisier,  that  must  consists  of  alcohol  combined 
with  carbonic  acid,  and  that  the  effects  of  vinous 
fermentation  upon  sugar  are  reduced  to  the  mere  se- 
paration of  the  elements  of  sugar  into  two  portions  ; 
one  portion  oxygenated  at  the  expense  of  the  other, 
so  as  to  form  carbonic  acid ;  the  other  disoxyge- 
nated  to  form  alcohol ;  so  that  were  it  possible  to 
reunite  alcohol  and  carbonic  acid  the  product 
would  be  sugar.  Bringing  you  down  to  a  later 
period,  the  modern  chemist  would  describe  a  the- 
ory current  about  between  thirty  and  forty  years 
ago  that  alcohol  is  a  compound  of  olefiant  gas  and 
water,  and  that  in  a  state  of  vapor  it  consists  of 
equal  volumes  of  these.  Or,  again,  that  it  was  a 
hydrate  of  ether;  or,  again,  according  to  a  still 
later  view,  that  it  was  a  hydrated  oxide  of  ethyl. 
Thus  he  would  bring  you  to  the  latest  theory  as 
to  composition  which  I  have  already  supplied. 

Lastly,  if  for  the  sake  of  further  comparison  you 
asked  the  chemist  of  .to-day  whether  alcohol  had 
any  ally  or  congener,  he  would  reply,  many.  He 
would  give  you,  for  instance,  this  spirit,  which  he 
would  call  methylic  alcohol,  and  which  he  would 
tell  you  was  got  also  by  distillation,  only  that  the 
distillation  was  dry,  and  that  the  substance  dis- 
tilled was  wood  ;  or  he  would  give  you  this  speci- 
men, which  he  would  call  amylic  alcohol,  and 
which  he  would  tell  you  was  got  by  distillation, 
not  of  wood,  but  of  potato.  Again,  he  would  show 
you  other  spec/mens,  to  which  he  would  give 


46  On  Alcohol. 

different  names  as  indicated  in  table  No.  V.  of  the 
Appendix. 

Directing  your  attention  to  the  composition  of 
these  alcohols,  the  chemist  would  beg  you  to  ob- 
serve that  their  chemical  construction  is  through- 
out the  same,  that  is  to  say,  in  all  cases,  a  radical 
composed  of  carbon  and  hydrogen  has  replaced 
one  of  the  equivalents  of  hydrogen  of  water.  The 
radicals,  however,  vary  in  respect  to  the  equiva- 
lents of  the  elements  of  which  they  are  composed, 
an.d  to  distinguish  them  they  have  different  names. 
Essentially  each  radical,  though  it  is  composed  of 
more  than  one  element,  acts  as  if  it  were  one,  and 
is  called  a  base,  because  it  is  a  root  or  origin  upon 
which  other  structures  rest.  Thus,  in  the  present 
case,  the  radicals,  as  they  vary  in  amount  of  car- 
bon and  hydrogen  which  they  contain,  produce, 
in  each  case  of  their  combination  with  water,  an 
alcohol  possessing  a  different  property  or  different 
properties  from  the  other  alcohols.  The  table 
No.  VI.  of  the  Appendix  will  give  an  illustration 
of  the  increase  of  carbon  and  hydrogen  in  the 
radicals  of  the  series. 

The  first  of  the  radicals,  methyl,  is  composed  of 
one  equivalent  of  carbon  and  three  of  hydrogen. 
The  radical  ethyl  of  two  of  carbon  and  five  of 
hydrogen.  The  radical  propyl  of  three  of  carbon 
and  seven  of  hydrogen,  and  so  onr  the  increase  in 
the  equivalents  of  the  elements  being  after  a  given 
rule  in  the  whole  series,  the  carbon  increasing  one, 
and  the  hydrogen  two  with  each  progressive  step. 
So,  as  the  alcohols  progressively  change  from  the 
first  of  the  series,  the  methylic,  they  grow  richer 


The  Alcohol  Group  of  Organic  Bodies.        4} 

in  carbon  and  hydrogen,  and  proportionately  they 
grow  heavier,  less  soluble,  and  less  volatile. 

A  very  simple  experiment  suffices  to  show  the 
increase  of  carbon  in  these  series.  If  I  take  a 
piece  of  cotton  wool,  place  it  in  a  glass  cup,  pour 
upon  it  a  little  methylic  alcohol,  in  which  alcohol 
there  is  the  smallest  amount  of  carbon,  set  fire  to 
it  and  hold  a  white  plate  over  the  flame,  the  plate 
remains  white  because  the  air  that  reaches  the 
flame  is  sufficient  to  consume  all  the  carbon.  If 
I  do  the  same  experiment  with  ethylic  alcohol, 
although  the  carbon  is  a  little  greater,  yet  the 
result  remains  the  same.  If  I  move  two  steps 
higher,  viz.,  to  butylic  alcohol,  in  which  there  are 
four  equivalents  of  carbon,  the  combustion  is  not 
quite  complete,  and  therefore  a  shade  or  stain  of 
carbon  is  left  on  the  plate  :  and  if,  going  one  step 
further  in  the  series,  I  use  amylic  alcohol,  then  the 
combustion  is  rendered  so  imperfect  that  a  thick 
.ayer  of  carbon,  derived  from  the  alcohol,  in  the 
destruction  of  it  by  the  burning,  is  left  upon  the 
white  surface.  I  may  digress  here  for  a  moment 
to  state, — if  the  practical  fact  about  to  be  told  be 
considered  a  digression, — that  this  simple  mode 
of-  testing  common  alcohol  will  serve  roughly  to 
detect  extreme  adulteration  of  it  with  the  heavier 
alcohol — fusel  oil,  some  of  which  I  last  burnt. 
This  heavier  alcohol  is  used  in  adulteration,  and 
as  you  will  learn  when  you  hear  of  its  effects,  it 
is  a  dangerous  adulterant.  I  was  dining  a  few 
months  ago  with  some  friends,  one  of  whom  pro- 
duced a  small  flask  of  precious  liquor  he  had  had 
presented  to  him;  and  which  was  said  to  be  an 


48  On  Alcohol. 

unusually  choice  Hollands.  On  examining-  it  I  felt 
sure  it  was  a  gin  treated  with  fusel  oil,  and  on 
burning  a  little  of  it,  this  suspicion  was  confirmed 
by  a  deposit  of  carbon  upon  a  white  dish.  I 
warned  my  friends  forthwith  of  the  danger  of 
drinking  this  heavy,  though  certainly  pleasant 
spirit,  and  the  majority  took  the  warning.  Two, 
less  prudent,  indulged,  to  suffer  for  the  next  two 
or  three  succeeding  days  to  an  extent  that  con- 
vinced them  that  there  was  no  mistake  in  the 
scientific  and  friendly  admonition  they  had  re- 
ceived. . 

The  physical  distinctions  between  the  various 
alcohols  now  before  us  are  marked  by  other  signs. 
For  example,  as  we  move  from  the  methylic  alco- 
hol upwards,  we  discover  that  their  vapors  in- 
crease in  weight,  that  as  fluids  they  grow  heavier, 
and  that  their  boiling  point,  that  is  to  say  the  tem- 
perature required  to  make  them  boil,  has  to  be 
increased.  Another  table,  No.  VII.  of  the  Appen- 
dix, illustrates  these  facts  in  relation  to  four  alco- 
hols of  the  series :  viz.,  methylic,  ethylic,  butylic, 
and  amylic. 

Thus  the  vapor  densky  of  methylic  alcohol  is  16 
when  compared  with  hydrogen  gas  as  a  standard ; 
of  ethylic  alcohol,  23  ;  of  butylic,  37  ;  and  of  amy- 
lic, 44.  In  respect  to  the  specific  gravity  of  the 
fluids,  that  is  to  say  of  the  weights  of  the  fluids 
themselves,  compared  with  water  estimated  as  a 
thousand,  the  same  rule  extends,  with  the  one 
remarkable  exception,  viz.,  that  the  methylic  alco- 
hol appears  heavier  than  the  ethylic,  after  which 
the  weights  increase,  so  that  amylic  alcohol  stands 


The  Alcohol  Group  of  Organic  Bodies.       49 

as  8 1 1,  to  792  the  weight  of  ethylic.  Again,  as  to 
(.he  boiling  points,  the  lightest  alcohol  boils  at  140, 
that  is  72°  below  the  boiling  point  of  water ;  ethy- 
lic at  172 ;  propylic  at  205  ;  butylic  at  230,  or  18° 
above  the  boiling  point  of  water;  and  amylic  at 
270,  or  58°  above  the  boiling  point  of  water,  on 
Fahrenheit's  scale. 

The  analogies  between  these  various  alcohols 
are  sustained  throughout  by  other  chemical 
changes  relating  to  them.  If  we  expose  diluted 
common  alcohol  to  the  atmosphere  under  fitting 
conditions  it  becomes  acidified  ;  in  other  words,  it 
is  converted  into  vinegar.  This  is  due  to  its  oxy- 
dation,  in  which  process  there  are  two  steps ;  one 
by  which  the  spirit  is  converted  into  a  substance 
called  aldehyde  (dehydrated  alcohol — al-de-hyd), 
and  then  into  acetic  acid,  or  vinegar.  In  the  for- 
mation of  the  aldehyde  two  atoms  of  the  hydrogen 
are  oxydised,  by  which  water  is  produced,  and 
the  aldehyde  has  therefore  the  composition  of 
CaH4O.  In  the  formation  of  the  acetic  acid 
another  atom  of  oxygen  is  added,  and  the  acetic 
acid  has  therefore  the  composition  of  CaH4Os. 
This  same  series  of  changes  extends  through  all 
the  alcohols,  as  will  be  seen  from  table  No.  VIII. 
of  the  Appendix. 

I  said,  in  the  first  lecture,  that  from  common  or 
ethylic  alcohol  a  new  compound  can  be  obtained 
by  heating  it  with  sulphuric  acid,  to  which  com- 
p  aind  the  name  of  ether  is  applied.  In  like  man- 
ner, an  ether  can  be  obtained  from  the  other 
alcohols. 

If  chlorine  be  brought  to  bear  upon  ethylic 


50  On  Alcohol. 

alcohol,  the  elements  of  water,  that  is  to  say,  the 
oxygen  and  the  hydrogen  are  removed,  and  are 
replaced  by  chlorine,  and  there  is  formed  chloride 
of  ethyl.  This  change  can  be  extended  to  all  the 
other  alcohols,  the  properties  of  the  products 
being  modified  by  the  base. 

The  same  rule  extends  to  the  action  of  iodine, 
and  to  that  of  nitrous  acid.  Tables  IX.  to  XII. 
of  the  Appendix  afford  illustrations  of  these  facts. 
They  could  be  largely  extended,  but  they  are 
sufficient  for  our  purpose. 

I  have  brought  for  those  who  are  curious  to  see 
them,  twelve  specimens  of  the  different  compounds 
formed  on  the  alcohols.  Six  of  these  belong  to 
the  ethyl,  or  common  alcohol  series,  six  to  the 
amyl,  and  they  include  respectively  specimens  of 
the  alcohols,  of  the  acids  of  the  alcohols,  of  the 
ethers,  of  the  chlorides,  of  the  iodides,  and  of  the 
nitrites.  One  of  these  specimens,  I  mean  the 
nitrite  of  amyl,  has  within  these  last  few  years 
obtained  a  remarkable  importance  owing  to  its 
extraordinary  action  upon  the  body.  A  distin- 
guished chemist,  Professor  Guthrie,  while  distill- 
ing over  nitrite  of  amyl  from  amylic  alcohol,  ob- 
served that  the  vapor,  when  inhaled,  quickened 
his  circulation,  and  made  him  feel  as  if  he  had 
been  running.  There  was  flushing  of  his  face, 
rapid  action  of  his  heart,  and  breathlessness.  In 
1 861-2,  I  made  a  careful  and  prolonged  study  of 
the  action  of  this  singular  body,  .and  discovered 
that  it  produced  its  effect  by  causing  an  extreme 
relaxation,  first,  of  the  blood  vessels,  and  after- 
wards of  the  muscular  fibres  of  the  body.  To 


The  Alcohol  Group  of  Organic  Bodies.        51 

such  an  extent  did  this  agent  relax,  I  found  it 
would  even  overcome  the  tetanic  spasm  produced 
by  strychnia,  and  having  thus  discovered  its 
action,  I  ventured  to  propose  its  use  for  removing 
the  spasm  in  some  of  the  extremest  spasmodic 
diseases.  The  results  have  more  than  realised  my 
expectations.  Under  the  influence  of  this  agent, 
one  of  the  most  agonising  of  known  human  mala- 
dies, called  Angina  pectoris,  has  been  brought  under 
such  control  that  the  paroxysms  have  been  regu- 
larly prevented,  and  in  one  instance,  at  least, 
altogether  removed.  Even  tetanus,  or  lock-jaw 
has  been  subdued  by  it,  and  in  two  instances,  of 
an  extreme  kind  so  effectively  as  to  warrant  the 
credit  of  what  may  be  truly  called  a  cure.  I 
notice  this  action  of  nitrite  of  amyl  because  it  will 
be  referred  to  again  in  explanation  of  certain  of 
the  effects  of  alcohol. 

I  should  have  liked,  if  there  had  been  time,  to 
have  dwelt  at  greater  length  on  many  other  inte- 
resting points  bearing  on  these  different  alcohols 
and  their  derivatives.  I  should  have  been  pleased 
to  have  presented  to  you  a  more  extended  account 
of  the  progress  of  discovery  during  the  past  cen- 
tury leading  to  these  modern  facts ;  and  I  should 
much  have  liked  to  have  rendered  more  complete 
the  description  of  the  alcohol  series  of  bodies,  by 
explaining  the  differences  of  what  are  called  mona- 
tomic,  diatomic,  and  triatomic  alcohols ;  but*  1 
must  desist  for  two  reasons ;  first,  because  the 
study  would  lead  me  into  too  great  detail,  and 
secondly,  because  it  would  introduce  to  notice  a 
series  of  compounds,  the  physiological  action  of 


53  On  Alcohol. 

which  are  not  so  well  understood  as  are  those  to 
which  I  shall  soon  direct  your  attention  and  the 
study  of  which  is  more  than  enough  for  the  time 
that  is  at  our  disposal.  It  must  be  considered  suf- 
ficient, therefore,  if  I  have  succeeded  in  showing 
that  the  common  alcohol  is  but  one  of  a  group  of 
a  series  of  chemical  compounds,  and  that  its  supe- 
rior claim  to  our  notice  rests  upon  its  antiquity  as 
a  discovered  substance,  and  on  its  enormous  dis- 
tribution in  civilised  communities,  rather  than  on 
its  special  or  distinctive  properties  as  a  chemical 
agent. 

One  other  series  of  facts  I  would,  however, 
briefly  describe  before  leaving  this  part  of  my 
subject.  If  into  this  ethylic  alcohol  I  throw  a 
portion  of  the  metal  sodium,  a  Drisk  action  imme- 
diately begins  to  take  place ;  as  you  will  see,  a  gas 
escapes  which  I  easily  collect  in  a  glass  tube, 
which  burns,  and  if  mixed  with  air,  explodes,  as 
you  hear.  The  gas  is  hydrogen.  A  change  of 
substitution  has  occurred  in  this  experiment.  The 
hydrogen  belonging  to  the  water  of  the  alcohol 
has  been  replaced  by  the  sodium,  and  what  is 
called  sodium  alcohol  is  produced.  The  result 
v/ould  have  been  the  same  with  potassium  as  the 
replacing  metal. 

By  acting  on  common  alcohol  with  strong-  pot- 
ash, then  with  sulphuretted  hydrogen,  and  after- 
wards with  iodide  of  ethyl,  a  new  alcohol  is  pro- 
duced called  mercaptan.  In  this  fluid  the  oxygen 
of  the  alcohol  *s  replaced  by  sulphur,  so  that  the 
formula  for  it  is  (C2H5)  HS.  It  is  a  fluid,  whitish 
in  color,  and  of  so  offensive  and  penetrating  an 


Action  of  Met  hylic  Alcohol.  53 

odor  that  it  can  hardly  bev  approached  until  it  is 
largely  diluted  with  common  alcohol.  It  is  nearly 
insoluble  in  water,  but  imparts  to  it  its  peculiar 
odor;  its  specific  gravity  is  832,  compared  with 
water  as  1,000;  it  is  thirty-one  times  heavier  than 
hydrogen,  and  it  boils  at  135°  Fahr. 

Sulphur  alcohol  is  very  rarely  seen,  but  there  is 
a  diluted  specimen  here  which  has  been  prepared 
with  very  great  care.  There  is  only  5  per  cent, 
of  it  in  the  solution,  and  yet  its  odor  is  as  strong  as 
can  well  be  borne. 

From  this  point  I  proceed  to  dwell  on  the  action 
of  certain  of  the  alcohols  which  have  been  brought 
before  us  up  to  the  present  time,  excluding  on  this 
occasion  the  alcohol  best  known,  I  mean  the  common 
alcohol  of  commerce,  or  as  we  know  it  chemically, 
ethylic  alcohol.  The  point  I  shall  aim  at  will  be 
to  show  the  influence  of  these  alcohols  upon  ani- 
mal life,  and  thereby  to  lead  up  to  the  action  of 
ethylic  alcohol  pure  and  simple.  The  subject  is 
one  entirely  new,  and  is  limited  to  a  very  few 
bodies  of  the  alcohol  group,  viz.,  to  methylic  alco- 
hol, butylic,  amylic,  the  potassium  and  sodium 
alcohols,  and  sulphur  alcohol  or  mercaptan. 

ACTION   OF   METHYLIC  ALCOHOL. 

Methylic  alcohol,  pyroxylic  spirit  or  wood  spirit, 
as  it  has  been  differently  called,  the  spirit  contained 
in  the  liquid  got  by  distilling  wood,  has  been  known 
for  about  62  years.  It  was  discovered  by  Mr.  Philip 
Taylor,  in  1812,  and  was  soon  applied  for  lamps 
and  for  other  purposes  as  a  spirit.  It  was  prob- 


54  On  Alcohol. 

ably  first  made  commercially  by  Messrs.  Turnbull 
and  Ramsay,  of  Glasgow.  Its  properties  were  in- 
vestigated and  reported  upon  by  Sir  Robert  Kane, 
of  Dublin,  in  1836,  and  it  was  also  analysed  by 
Messrs.  Dumas  and  Peligot,  who  determined  that 
it  contained  37.5  per  cent,  of  carbon,  12.5  per  cent, 
of  hydrogen,  and  50  per  cent,  of  oxygen.  When  it 
is  pure  it  remains  clear  in  the  atmosphere.  It  has 
an  aromatic  smell,  with  a  slight  acidity.  The 
specimen  I  have  used  for  my  research  had  a  speci- 
fic weight  of  810,  water  being  1,000,  and  it  boiled 
at;  140°  Fahr. 

The  spirit  has  been  much  used  in  the  arts  in  the 
place  of  alcohol  for  making  varnishes.  Having  a 
lower  boiling  point  it  is  more  volatile  than  com- 
mon alcohol.  It  is  now  also  largely  used  in  mu- 
seums for  preserving  purposes,  and  it  yields  on 
oxydation  a  very  powerful  preservative  vinegar. 
For  the  sake  of  economy  it  is  often  employed  in 
the  manufacture  of  other  compounds  called  methy- 
lated. 

Owing  to  the  volatile  nature  of  this  alcohol  it 
may  be  exhibited  freely  by  inhalation  in  the  same 
manner  that  chloroform  is  administered.  It  then 
enters  the  blood  by  being  carried  with  the  air  that 
is  inspired  into  the  pulmonary  tract,  and  thus  into 
the  air  vesicles.  Here  it  is  absorbed  into  the  cir- 
culation by  the  minute  blood-vessels  which  make 
their  way  from  the  heart  over  the  lungs,  and  which 
ramify  upon  the  vesicles.  By  administrating  the 
vapor  of  methylic  alcohol  in  this  way  its  effects 
are  rapidly  developed,  for  it  condenses  quickly  in 
the  blo*od,  is  carried  rapidly  into  the  left  side  of 


Action  of  Me f hylic  Alcohol.  55 

the  heart  and  thence  is  distributed  by  the  arteries 
over  the  whole  body  as  quickly  as  it  is  condensed 
and  absorbed. 

The  alcohol  may  be  administered  in  the  usual 
way,  that  is  to  say,  in  combination  with  water,  hot 
or  cold.  In  this  way  it  is  not -unpleasant  to  the 
taste,  and  in  one  instance,  as  I  am  informed  by  a 
veteran  member  of  my  profession,  this  alcohol  was 
invariably  drunk  by  a  well-known  physician,  in 
preference  to  common  alcohol.  He  was  accus- 
tomed to  make  it  into  toddy,  with  water  and  sugar, 
and  considered  that  while  it  was  as  pleasant  to 
take  as  ordinary  spirituous  drinks,  it  was  less  in- 
jurious than  they  are.  I  have  myself,  of  late 
years,  when  compelled  to  allow  the  administration 
of  alcohol,  sometimes  recommended  this  methylic 
lighter  spirit,  and  I  am  satisfied,  with  better  re- 
sults than  if  the  heavier  or  ethylic  spirit  had  been 
employed.  I  have  ventured  also  to  suggest  that 
in  many  instances  other  physicians  might  follow 
the  same  practice  with  advantage  ;  for  methylic 
alcohol  is  much  more  rapid  in  its  action,  and  much 
less  prolonged  in  its  effects  than  is  common  alco- 
'.iol,  so  that  it  produces  its  effetts  promptly,  and 
what  is  of  most  importance,  it  demands  the  least 
possible  ultimate  expenditure  of  animal  force  foi 
its  elimination  from  the  body.  This  latter  fact,  I 
repeat,  is  of  great  moment,  for,  in  the  end,  all  these 
alcoholic  fluids  are  depressants,  and  although  at 
first,  by  their  calling  vigorously  into  play  the  na- 
tural forces,  they  seem  to  excite  and  are  therefore 
called  stimulants,  they  themselves  supply  no  force 
at  any  time,  but  cause  expenditure  of  force,  by 


56'  On  Alcohol. 

which  means  they  get  away  out  of  the  body  and 
therewith  lead  to  exhaustion  and  paralysis  of  mo- 
tion. In  other  words,  the  animal  force  which 
should  be  expended  on  the  nutrition  and  sensation 
of  the  body,  is  in  part  expended  on  the  alcohol,  an 
entirely  foreign  expenditure.  . 

The  lighter  the  alcohol  therefore,  c&teris paribus, 
the  less  injurious  its  action,  and  so  we  may  put 
down  methylic  alcohol  as  the  safest  of  the  series  of 
bodies  to  which  it  belongs.  But  it  is  not  without 
potency  of  effect,  and  the  phenomena  it  produces 
are  sufficiently  demonstrative.  Its  effects  are  de- 
veloped in  four  distinct  stages. 

The  first  stage  is  that  of  excitement  of  the  ner- 
vous organisation;  the  pulse  is  quickened,  the 
breathing  is  quickened,  the  surface  of  the  body  is 
flushed,  and  the  pupil  is  dilated.  After  a  little 
time  there  is  a  sense  of  languor,  the  muscles  falling 
into  a  state  of  prostration  and  the  muscular  move- 
ments becoming  irregular.  Thereupon  the  second 
stage  follows,  if  the  administration  be  continued. 
In  this  second  stage  the  muscular  prostration  is 
increased,  the  breathing  is  labored,  and  is  attended 
by  deep  sighing  movements  at  intervals  of  about 
four  or  five  seconds,  followed  by  further  prostra- 
tion, rolling  over  of  the  body  upon  the  side,  and 
distinct  signs  of  intoxication.  From  this  condition 
the  subject  passes  into  the  third  stage,  which  is 
that  of  entire  intoxication,  complete  insensibility 
to  pa:n,  with  unconsciousness  of  all  external  ob- 
jects, and  with  inability  to  exert  any  voluntary 
muscular  power.  The  breathing  now  becomes 
embarrassed  and  blowing,  with  what  is  techni- 


Action  of  Met  hylic  Alcohol.  57 

caliy  called  "  bronchial  rale,"  or  rattle,  due  to  the 
passage  of  air  through  fluid  that  has  accumulated 
in  the  finer  bronchial  passages.  The  heart  and 
lungs,  however,  even  in  this  stage,  retain  their 
functions,  and  therefore  recovery  will  take  place 
if  the  conditions  for  it  be  favorable.  Also,  if  the 
body  be  touched  or  irritated  in  parts,  there  will 
be  response  of  motion,  not  from  any  knowledge  or 
consciousness,  but  from  what  we  physiologists  call 
"  reflex  action  ; "  that  is  to  say,  the  impression  we 
have  made  by  irritation  upon  the  surface  of  the 
body  has  travelled  by  its  usual  route  through  the 
nerves  to  its  nervous  centre  in  the  brain,  and  un- 
controlled there  by  the  consciousness  has  rolled 
back  again,  stimulating  in  its  course  some  muscu- 
lar fibre  to  motion.  Probably  the  reason  why  the 
heart,  which  is  a  muscle,  and  the  breathing  mus- 
cles, continue  to  beat  while  all  the  other  portions 
are  at  rest  is  due  to  this  fact,  that  the  blood  which 
the  heart  drives  to  the  brain  and  other  nervous 
centres  conveys  to  the  centres  which  supply  the 
heart  a  wave  of  motion  that  rolls  back  upon  these 
vital  muscles,  and  sustains"  them  still  in  their 
rhythmical  motion. 

During  all  these  stages  there  is  no  violent  con- 
vulsive action  from  this  alcohol,  and  no  distinct 
tremor;  but  one  phenomenon  has  been  step  by 
step  more  marked,  and  that  phenomenon  is  a  re- 
duction of  the  animal  temperature.  Even  though 
the  body  of  the  subject  be  exposed  to  a  tempera- 
ture of  84°,  that  is  summer  heat,  it  will  begin  to 
cool  from  the  first,  and  will  continue  to  cool 
through  all  the  stages,  so  that  at  last  the  loss  of 


58  On  Alcohol. 

heat  will  become  actually  dangerous ;  for  the  cold 
body  cannot  throw  off  water  freely,  and  therefore 
fluid  collects  in  the  lungs,  and  there  is  risk  of  what 
may  be  plainly  considered  suffocation  like  as  from 
drowning.  I  have  seen  this  decline  of  tempera- 
ture from  methylic  alcohol,  in  animals  narcotised 
by  it,  proceed  to  the  loss  of  eight  degrees  of  heat 
on  Fahrenheit's  scale  when  the  insensibility  was  at 
its  extreme  point. 

Presuming  that  the  administration  of  the  me- 
thylic spirit  be  continued  when  the  third  degree 
has  been  reached,  there  is  a  last  stage,  which  is 
that  of  death.  The  two  remaining  nervous  cen- 
tres which  feed  the  heart  and  respiration  cease 
simultaneously  to  act,  and  all  motion  is  over. 
After  the  death  the  blood  throughout  the  body  is 
found  charged  with  the  alcohol.  The  circulation 
of  blood  over  the  lungs  has  continued  to  the  last, 
and  so  the  lungs  are  found  containing  blood  in 
both  sides  of  the  heart ;  the  vessels  of  the  brain  are 
engorged  with  blood,  as  are  the  other  vascular 
organs.  The  blood  itself  is  not  materially  changed 
in  physical  quality,  but  coagulates,  or  forms  into 
clot,  rather  more  slowly  than  usual. 

If  at  the  third  stage  of  insensibility  the  adminis- 
tration of  methylic  spirit  be  stopped,  recovery 
from  the  insensibility  and  prostration  will  invaria- 
bly take  place  on  one  condition,  that  the  body  be 
kept  dry  and  warm.  From  four  to  five  hours, 
however,  are  necessary  before  the  recovery  is 
complete,  and  under  the  best  conditions  the  resto- 
ration of  the  animal  temperature  is  not  perfected 
under  a  period  of  seven  hours. 


Action  of  Met  hylic  Alcohol.  59 

Happily  we  have  no  data  to  guide  us  that  will 
show  the  effects  on  the  animal  body  of  the  long 
continued  use  of  methylic  alcohol,  for  men  have  not 
as  yet  so  steadily  plied  themselves  with  it  as  a 
drink  as  to  induce 'phenomena  of  chronic  intoxica- 
tion from  it.  The  above-named  facts,  however, 
drawn  from  careful  observations,  in  which  the 
effects  of  the  agent  were  seen  on  the  inferior  ani- 
mals, and  in  one  instance  where  the  fluid  was  taken 
by  accident  by  the  human  subject,  show  that  me- 
thylic alcohol,  though  it  may  be  less  potent  than 
its  allies,  is  sufficiently  potent,  and  the  inference  is 
fair,  indeed  irresistible,  that  if  the  use  of  it  were 
persevered  in  for  long  periods  of  time,  it  would  lead 
to  structural  change  in  the  body,  just  as  all  other 
chemical  agents  do  that  modify  and  pervert  the 
natural  mechanism.  An  agent  that  causes  con- 
gestion of  the  brain  cannot  be  employed  many 
times  without  destroying  the  delicate  organisation 
of  the  vascular  structure  of  the  brain,  neither  can 
it  influence  the  other  vascular  organs  in  the  same 
way  without  prejudice  to  their  structure  ;  neither 
can  it  destroy  the  function  of  the  nerves,  of  the 
muscles,  and  of  the  organs  of  the  senses  without 
prejudice  to  their  functions.  In  many  respects 
this,  the  lightest  and  least  injurious  of  the  alcohols, 
resembles  chloroform  in  the  ultimate  action  it  pro- 
duces on  the  body.  It  still  more  closely  resem- 
bles ether,  although  recovery  from  the  effects  of 
both  these  agents  is  very  much  more  rapid  than 
from  the  spirit.  It  may  consequently,  as  a  chemi- 
cal agent  possessing  a  specific  power  of  action 
over  the  living  organism,  be  fairly  classified  with 


60  On  Alcohol. 

these  agents.  It  is  quite  as  artificial  as  they  are, 
it  is  quite  as  dangerous  in  the  long  run,  and  its 
effects  are  more  prolonged. 

ACTION  OF  BUTYLIC  ALCOHOL. 

I  pass  over  the  second  alcohol  of  our  series,  viz., 
ethylic  alcohol,  the  common  alcohol  of  wines  and 
spirits,  because  that  will  of  itself  engage  our  atten- 
tion for  the  remaining  part  of  the  course,  after  this 
lecture  is  concluded.  I  pass  over  propylic  also  for 
the  reason  that  it  is  not  easily  separated  as  an 
alcohol,  and  is  less  perfectly  studied  than  the  other 
members  of  the  group  before  us.  Thus  I  am 
brought  to  what  is  called  butylic  alcohol. 

With  this  spirit  we  arrive  at  one  of  the  heavier 
bodies  of  the  group  in  which,  as  our  table  shows, 
there  is  a  higher  proportion  of  carbon  and  hydro- 
gen than  exists  in  those  that  are  placed  above  it  in 
the  scale.  Compared  with  common  alcohol  the 
weight  of  its  vapor  is  as  37  to  23.  Its  weight,  as  a 
fluid,  is  803  to  792,  and  its  boiling  point  230  Fahr. 
to  172.  It  is  a  heavier  fluid  ;  it  mixes  indifferently 
with  water,  but  it  is  not  unpleasant  to  take  when 
diluted  and  sweetened.  Applied  to  the  lips  and 
tongue  when  in  a  pure  state  it  creates  a  sensation 
of  burning,  in  the  same  way  as  common  spirit,  but 
with  more  intensity,  and  there  is  this  remarkable 
fact  connected  with  the  sensation,  that  after  the 
burning  effect  has  passed  away  an  extreme  numb- 
ness of  the  part,  where  the  fluid  was  applied,  re- 
mains. I  made  this  observation  originally  in  1869, 
and  I  have  since  often  applied  the  knowledge  with 


Action  of  Butylic  Alcohol.  6l 

i 
effect,  in  relieving,  by  the  application  of  the  agent, 

local  pain.  Toothache,  for  instance,  is  very  quickly 
soothed  by  it. 

The  alcohol  is  not  obtained  by  a  special  process 
of  distillation  ;  it  is  produced  with  other  alcohols 
in  the  process  of  fermentation,  and  is  obtained  by 
what  is  called  fractional  distillation,  that  is,  by  dis- 
tillation of  it,  at  certain  fixed  temperatures,  from 
fusel  oil,  or  from  the  oil  of  beet-root,  or  from  mo- 
lasses after  distillation  of  ethyiic  spirit. 

The  action  of  butylic  alcohol  on  the  animal  body 
is  divisible  into  four  stages,  the  same  as  we  have 
seen  in  respect  to  methylic  spirit,  but  the  period 
required  for  producing  the  different  stages  is 
greatly  prolonged  ;  and  when  the  third  stage,  that 
of  complete  insensibility,  is  reached,  there  is  added 
a  new  phenomenon  which  does  not  belong  to  any 
of  the  lighter  alcohols.  In  this  third  degree,  after 
the  temperature  of  the  body  is  depressed  to  the 
minimum  by  the  butylic  spirit,  distinct  tremors 
occur  throughout  the  whole  of  the  muscular  sys- 
tem. These  come  on  at  regular  intervals  spon- 
taneously, but  they  can  be  excited  by  a  touch  at 
any  time,  and  in  the  intervals  where  they  are 
absent  there  is  frequent  twitching  of  the  muscles. 
The  tremors  themselves  are  not  positively  muscu- 
lar contractions,  but  are  rather  vibrations  or  wave- 
like  motions  through  the  muscles,  and  are  attended 
with  an  extreme  deficiency  of  true  contractile 
power  in  the  muscular  fibre.  •  An  electrical  cur- 
rent passed  through  the  muscles,  which  would,  in 
health,  throw  them  into  rigid  contraction,  will 
now  excite  the  tremors  and  keep  them  proceeding, 


62  „  On  Alcohol. 

out  will  not  excite  complete  contraction.  So  long 
as  the  tremors  are  present,  the  temperature  of  the 
body  is  depressed,  falling  even  half  a  degree  ;  but 
when  they  cease  the  temperature  rises  again,  not 
to  the  natural  standard,  but  to  or  near  that  which 
existed  before  the  tremors  were  excited.  After 
the  tremors  are  once  established,  they  continue 
without  further  administration  of  the  alcohol  for 
ten  and  twelve  hours,  and  so  slowly  do  they 
decline,  they  may  remain  in  a  slight  degree  for 
even  thirty-six  hours.  They  subside  by  remission 
of  intensity  and  prolongation  of  interval  of  recur- 
rence. One  fact  of  singular  significance  attaches 
itself  to  these  muscular  tremors.  They  are  the 
tremors  which  occur  in  man  during  the  stage  of 
alcoholic  disease,  when  there  is  set  up  that  malady 
to  which  we  give  the  name  of  delirium  trcmcns. 
An  ordinary  intoxication  with  a  lighter  alcohol  is 
insufficient  to  produce  this  extreme  perversion  of 
nervous  and  muscular  power,  but  the  introduction 
of  one  of  these  heavier  alcohols,  or,  it  may  be,  the 
excessive  saturation  of  the  body  with  a  lighter 
spirit,  for  on  this  point  I  am  not  sure,  is  sufficient 
to  cause  the  tremulous  motion.  What  the  nature 
of  these  muscular  movements  is,  what  unnatural 
relationships  exist  between  the  nervous  system, 
the  muscles,  and  the  blood,  to  lead  to  them  are 
questions  still  unsolved.  Involuntary,  developed 
even  against  the  will,  excited  by  any  external 
touch,  attended  with  great  reduction  of  tempera- 
ture, and  remaining  as  long  as  the  temperature  is 
reduced,  they  indicate  an  extreme  depression  of 
animal  force  :  a  cond  tion  in  which  all  the  force  of 


Action  of  But y lie  Alcohol.  63 

life  that  remains  has  to  be  expended  on  the  mere 
organic  acts  of  life,  on  the  support  of  the  motions 
of  the  heart,  the  muscles  of  respiration,  and  the 
functions  of  the  secreting  glands.  The  voluntary 
systems  of  nerve  and  muscle  are  indeed  well-nigh 
dead,  and  recovery  rests  entirely  on  the  mainten- 
ance of  the  organic  nervous  power.  Still  recovery 
will  take  place  if  the  body  be  sustained  by  external 
heat  and  by  internal  nourishment. 

In  the  extreme  stage  of  intoxication  from  butylic 
alcohol  the  red  blood  in  the  arteries  loses  its  rich 
color,  and  the  blood  from  the  veins,  which  flows 
with  difficulty,  is  of  a  dirty  hue.  The  blood 
coagulates  readily,  but  the  clot  is  loose,  and  the 
fibrine  of  which  it  is  composed  separates  in  a 
coarse  network  or  mesh.  The  little  corpuscles  of 
the  blood  run  into  each  other,  forming  rolls  or 
columns.  Indeed,  it  is  wonderful  how  the  blood 
circulates  through  the  structures  it  should  nourish. 
The  vascular  membranes  of  the  brain  are  found 
charged  with  this  tarry  blood  ;  the  brain  structure 
is  softened,  and  gives  the  odor  of  the  poison,  and 
the  muscles,  when  divided  by  the  knife,  cut  with- 
out firmness,  yielding  from  numerous  points  the 
same  tar-  like  blood.  The  vascular  organs — spleen, 
liver,  lungs,  kidneys — are  equally  changed,  and  in 
a  similar  manner.  Their  fine  structures  are  infil- 
trated with  the  deteriorated  vascular  fluid  which 
was  intended  for  their  maintenance,  and  even  the 
secretions  and  cavities,  of  the  body  are  perverted 
bv  being  charged  with  fluid  derived  from  the  un- 
natural blood.  This  is  the  state  of  the  body  of  one 
xvho  dies  insensible  after  the  delirium  and  tremors 


64  On  AlcohoL 

which  characterise  the  human  malady,  self-inflicted 
and  terrible,  known  as  delirium  tremens. 


ACTION  OF  AMYLIC  ALCOHOL. 

Amylic  alcohol,  the  next  of  our  series,  is  obtained 
by  the  fermentation  of  potato  starch,  or  starch  of 
grain,  and  when  pure  is  a  colorless  fluid.  Its 
weight,  compared  with  water  as  1,000,  is  818,  and 
it  boils  at  270°  Fahr.  It  is  from-this  alcohol  that 
the  active  substance,  nitrite  of  amyl,  to  which  I 
have  before  referred,  is  derived.  The  odor  of 
amylic  alcohol  is  sweet,  nauseous,  and  heavy.  The 
sensation  of  its  presence  remains  long.  In  taste  it 
is  burning  and  acrid,  and  it  is  itself  practically  in- 
soluble in  water.  When  it  is  diluted  with  common 
alcohol  it  dissolves  freely  in  water,  and  gives  a 
soft  and  rather  unctuous  flavor,  I  may  call  it  a 
fruity  flavor,  something  like  that  of  ripe  pears. 
From  the  quantities  of  it  imported  into  this  coun- 
try it  is  believed  to  be  employed  largely  in  the 
adulteration  of  wines  and  spirits. 

Amylic  alcohol,  when  it  is  introduced  as  an 
adulterant,  is  an  extremely  dangerous  addition  to 
ordinary  alcohol,  in  whatever  form  it  is  presented, 
whether  as  wine  or  spirit.  Its  action  on  the  body 
is  the  same  as  that  of  butylic  alcohol.  It  produces 
three  stages  of  insensibility,  ending  in  the  pro- 
foundest  narcotism,  or  coma,  followed  by  reduction 
of  temperature  and  by  muscular  tremors.  These 
tremors  recur  with  the  most  perfect  regularity  of 
themselves,  but  they  can  be  excited  at  any  moment 
by  touching  the  body,  or  blowing  upon  it,  or  even 


Action  of  Sodium  and  Potassium  Alcohols.    65 

by  a  sharp  noise,  such  as  the  snap  of  the  finger. 
In  all  other  respects  the  phenomena  induced  are 
the  same  as  are  observed  from  butylic  alcohol,  ex- 
cept that  they  are  much  more  prolonged,  from  two 
to  three  days  being  sometimes  required  for  the 
complete  restoration  of  the  animal  temperature. 
The  reason  of  this  prolongation  of  action  lies  in  the 
greater  weight  and  the  greater  insolubility  of  this 
spirit ;  that  is  to  say,  the  force  required  to  decom- 
pose it,  or  mechanically  to  lift  it  out  of  the  body 
when  it  has  once  entered  it,  is  so  much  greater 
than  is  required  for  the  lighter  spirits,  which  diffuse 
more  readily  through  the  secretions,  volatilise  by 
the  breath  or  possibly  undergo  rapid  decompo- 
sition. The  odor  of  the  substance  remains  for 
many  hours  in  the  animal  tissues.  Amylic  alcohol 
acts  upon  some  resins  and  resinous  substances,  dis- 
solving, I  believe,  certain  of  them  more  easily  than 
the  lighter  spirits,  but  its  peculiar  odor  prevents 
its  application  on  a  large  scale. 


ACTION  OF  SODIUM  AND   POTASSIUM  ALCOHOLS. 

The  action  of  the  sodium  and  potassium  alcohols 
is  exceedingly  interesting  in  a  physiological,  al- 
though not  in  A  practical  point  of  view,  except  in 
respect  to  their  various  uses  as  chemical  re-agents. 
They  act  on  the  living  animal  tissues  as  caustics, 
and  will  one  day  be  considered  of  great  service  to 
the  surgeon.  Brought  into  contact  with  blood,  in 
solution,  there  is  produced  by  them  an  almost 
instant  crystallisation  of  needle-like  crystals  spread 
out  in  beautiful  arborescent  filaments.  This  ar- 


66  On  Alcohol. 

borescent  appearance  is  identical  with  a  crystalli. 
sation  which  can  be  induced  in  these  alcohols 
themselves,  but  there  are  also  formed  smaller 
radiant  crystals  due  to  the  crystallisation  of  the 
crystalloidal  matter  of  the  blood-cells,  and  singu- 
larly like  the  forms  which,  since  the  time  of  Dr. 
Richard  Mead,  have  been  described  as  occurring 
in  the  blood  after  infection  by  the  poison  of  the 
viper. 

These  metallic  alcohols  are  powerful  antiseptics, 
like  common  alcohol,  over  which  they  have  an 
advantage  in  that  they  more  thoroughly  harden 
soft  structures.  I  have  taken  advantage  of  this 
action  to  employ  them  for  the  preservation  of 
nervous  matter,  which  is  rapidly  prone  to  decom- 
position. 

I  should  add  that,  by  some  chemists  these  alco- 
hols are  called  ethylates  of  sodium  or  potassium,  a 
term  \rhich  is  thought  to  define  more  correctly 
their  chemical  construction. 


ACTION  OF  MERCAPTAN  OR  SULPHUR  ALCOHOL. 

I  have  already  referred  briefly  to  this  most 
curious  body  of  the  alcohol  series,  describing  it  as 
an  alcohol  in  which  oxygen  is  replaced  by  sulphur. 
In  experimenting  with  it  a  solution  containing  5 
per  cent,  is  sufficient,  and  the  vapor  of  it  may  be 
inhaled  in  order  to  produce  its  effects.  These  are 
most  remarkable. 

I  found,  by  direct  experiment,  that  the  vapor  is 
not  irritating  to  breathe,  but  that  its  influence  on 
the  system  is  speedily  pronounced.  There  is  a 


Action  of  Mercaptan  or  Sulphur  Alcohol.      67 

desire  for  sleep,  and  a  strange,  unhappy  sensation, 
as  if  some  actual  or  impending-  trouble  were  at 
hand.  This  is  succeeded  by  an  easy  but  extreme 
sensation  of  muscular  fatigue ;  the  limbs  feel  too 
heavy  to  be  lifted,  and  rest  is  absolutely  necessary. 
There  is,  at  the  same  time,  no  insensibility  to  pain, 
and  no  intoxication.  The  pulse  is  rendered  feeble 
and  slow,  and  remains  so  for  one  or  two  hours: 
but,  in  time,  all  the  effects  pass  off,  and  active  mo- 
tion in  the  air  helps  quickly  to  dispose  of  them. 

On  the  inferior  animals  the  action  of  mercaptan 
is  equally  peculiar.  Frogs  exposed  to  its  vapor 
fall  asleep,  and  seem  to  pass  into  actual  death,  ex- 
cept that  the  eye  remains  bright.  They  may  be 
left  in  this  apparently  lifeless  state  for  half  an 
hour,  then,  removed  into  the  air,  they  commence, 
in  the  course  of  an  hour  and  a  half  or  two  hours, 
to  breathe  again,  and  gradually  recover,  precisely 
as  if  they  were  awaking  from  sleep.  The  action 
of  this  alcohol  on  the  animal  body,  though  it  pro- 
duces these  extreme  effects,  is  less  injurious  than 
that  of  the  other  alcohols.  It  escapes  rapidly  by 
the  breath,  and  in  some  new  form,  as  a  sulphur 
compound.  It  communicates  to  the  breath  an 
odor  which  is  by  no  means  uncommon  in  persons 
who  indulge  to  a  great  extent  in  the  use  of  or- 
dinary alcohol.  This  observation  suggests  a  most 
important  explanation  of  certain  phenomena  con- 
nected with  the  action  of  common  alcohol.  It 
appears  to  me  that  in  some  states  there  is  actually 
produced  in  the  living  organism,  by  the  vital 
chemistry,  sulphur  compounds,  derived  probably 
from  the  bile,  a  substance  rich  in  sulphur,  which 


68  On  Alcohol. 

compounds,  distributed  by  the  blood  to  the  ner- 
vous matter,  create  phenomena  similar  to  those  I 
have  described  as  folio  wing  upon  the  inhalation  of 
mcrcaptan.  Thus,  under  unnatural  modes  of  life, 
the  body  may  actually  make  its  own  poisons,  and 
the  doctor  be  often  asked  to  remove  what  the 
patient,  if  he  were  a  better  chemist  and  a  wiser 
man,  would  never  produce  for  the  exercise  of  the 
doctor's  skil. 


LECTURE  III. 

THE  INFLUENCE  OF  COMMON  OR  ETHYLIC  ALCO- 
HOL ON  ANIMAL  LIFE.  THE  PRIMARY  PHYSIO- 
LOGICAL ACTION  OF  ALCOHOL. 

THE  primary  action  of  ethylic  alcohol  on  animal 
life  forms  our  next  study.  This  is  the  alcoholic 
spirit  which  enters  into  wines,  beers,  and  ordinary 
spirituous  liquors. 

There  are  two  modes  in  which  this  subject  must 
be  discussed.  One  relates  to  the  mere  physical 
action  of  alcohol  upon  the  body,  the  other  to  its 
action  as  a  food  for  the  body.  Of  the  varied  sub- 
stances which  we  take  into  our  systems,  some,  like 
chloroform,  or  opium,  produce  very  marked  phy- 
sical effects,  which  we  may  call  physiological,  but 
which  have  nothing  to  do  with  the  nourishment  of 
the  organism,  nor  with  the  sustainment  of  its  vital 
power.  Other  substances  act  as  foods,  producing 
certain  continuous  phenomena  of  structural  build 
and  of  vital  function.  Alcohol  is  peculiar  in  that 
we  are  obliged  to  consider  it,  at  the  present  time, 
from  each  of  these  points  of  view,  and  I  now  take 
up  the  first,  I  mean  the  purely  physical  action  of 
alcohol,  reserving  the  question  of  its  qualities  as  a 
food  for  a  future  lecture. 

A  very  simple  problem  lies  before  us.  'The  sum 
of  £1 17,000,000  of  money  is  invested  in  this  country 
on  alcohol  as  a  commercial  substance.  Where 

CD 


70  On  Alcohol. 

does  the  alcohol  go  ?  We  know  that  the  larger 
part  of  it  goes  for  consumption  by  human  beings. 
A  little — I  mean,  by  comparison,  a  little — is  used 
for  the  purposes  of  art  and  science,  but  the  greater 
portion  of  it,  practically  all  but  the  whole  of  it,  is 
consumed  by  human  beings.  Thus  a  question 
arises,  we  may  almost  say,  of  engineering  and  com- 
merce, a  question,  therefore,  particularly  worthy  of 
this  Society,  viz.,  What  is  the  good  of  this  invested 
capital,  and  of  the  substance  which  it  supplies  ?  It 
is  not  necessary  for  any  of  us  to  consider  ourselves 
as  physicians  in  studying  this  matter,  but  we  may 
all  consider  ourselves  as  animal  engineers,  anxious 
to  know  the  physical  properties  of  agents  which  in- 
fluence the  animal  life.  To  put  it  in  a  very  practical 
way,  suppose  that  there  was  no  question  involved 
in  regard  to  the  influence  of  alcohol  upon  the  body, 
but  that  in  the  course  of  the  invention  of  motive 
engines — common  inanimate  engines,  which  can  be 
made  to  exhibit  motive  power  by  the  application 
of  heat  to  water — it  had  originally  become  the 
practice  from  some  circumstance  to  put  into  the 
engines  so  much  spirit  with  the  water,  and  to  work 
the  engines  with  this  mixture.  Then  'suppose 
somebody  said,  "  This  is  a  very  expensive  process 
of  working  the  engines  ;  may  be  they  will  work  as 
well  without  the  spirit."  You  would  naturally  in- 
quire, "  Can  such  be  fact  ?  "  And  you  would  seek 
an  engineer  to  fill  the  place  I  have  now  the  honor 
to  occupy,  to  explain  to  you  the  mechanism  of  the 
engines.  You  would  also  beg  him  to  explain  and 
put  before  you  facts  which  would  bear  upon  the 
point,  whether  the  admixture  of  spirit  and  water 


Absorption  of  Alcohol  by  the  Body.  71 

was  useful  or  useless  ?  Now,  please,  consider  me 
to-night  as  an  engineer,  and  the  animal  body  as  the 
engine  I  am  to  speak  upon.  I  am  not  going  to 
address  a  word  to  you  as  a  physician ;  I  am  not 
going  to  offer  advice.  I  simply  mean  to  place  be- 
fore you,  as  far  as  I  know  them,  the  facts  relating 
to  the  physical  effects  of  this  thing,  alcohol,  when 
it  is  put  into  one  of  those  millions  of  engines  which 
we  call  men. 

Alcohol  will  enter  the  body — the  engine  of 
which  I  am  about  to  speak — by  many  channels. 
It  can  be  introduced  by  injecting  it  under  the  skin 
or  into  a  vein.  Exalted  by  heat  into  the  form  of 
vapor,  it  may  be  inhaled  by  man  or  animal,  when 
it  will  penetrate  into  the  lungs,  will  diffuse  through 
the  bronchial  tubes,  will  pass  into  the  minute  air 
vesicles  of  the  lungs,  will  travel  through  the  minute 
circulation  with  the  blood  that  is  going  over  the 
air  vesicles  to  the  heart,  will  condense  in  that 
blood,  will  go  direct  to  the  left  side  of  the  heart, 
thence  into  the  arterial  canals  and  so  throughout 
the  body.  Or,  again,  the  spirit  can  be  taken  in  by 
the  more  ordinary  channel,  the  stomach.  Through 
this  channel  it  finds  its  way,  by  two  routes,  into 
the  circulation.  A  certain  portion  of  it — the  great- 
er portion  of  it — is  absorbed  direct  by  the  veins  of 
the  alimentary  surface,  finds  its  way  straight  into 
the  larger  veins,  which  lead  up  to  the  heart,  and 
onwards  with  the  course  of  the  blood.  Another 
portion  is  picked  up  by  those  small  structures 
which  proceed  from  below  the  mucous  surface  of 
the  stomach,  which  are  called  villi,  and  from  wnich 
originate  a  series  of  fine  tubes  that  reach  at  last  the 


72  On  Alcohol. 

lower  portion  of  a  common  tube  known  as  the 
thoracic  duct,  the  tube  which  ascends  in  front  of 
the  spinal  column,  and  terminates  at  the  junction 
of  two  large  veins  on  the  left  side  of  the  body,  at 
a  point  where  the  venous  blood,  returning  from 
the  left  arm,  joins  with  the  returning  blood  from 
the  left  side  of  the  head  on  its  way  to  the  heart. 

Thus  in  whatever  way  the  alcohol  is  introduced 
it  enters  the  blood ;  the  shortest  way  is  that  by  in- 
halation, the  longest  and  most  ordinary  way  is  by 
the  stomach.  Indeed,  except  for  experimental 
purposes,  tho  introduction  is  always  by  this  lattei 
and  longest  route,  and  we  may,  for  our  practice 
purposes,  only  think  of  alcohol  as  a  fluid  taken  by 
the  mouth  into  the  stomach,  and  absorbed  like  « 
food  or  a  drink  from  the  surface  of  the  alimentarv 

0 

canal. 

Suppose,  then,  a  certain  measure  of  alcohol  bt? 
taken  into  the  stomach,  it  will  be  absorbed  there, 
but,  previous  to  absorption,  it  will  have  to  under- 
go a  proper  degree  of  dilution  with  water,  for 
there  is  this  peculiarity  respecting  alcohol  when  it 
is  separated  by  an  animal  membrane  from  a  watery 
fluid  like  the  blood,  that  it  will  not  pass  through 
the  membrane  until  it  has  become  charged,  to 
a  given  point  of  dilution,  with  water.  It  is  itself, 
in  fact,  so  greedy  for  water,  it  will  pick  it  up  from 
watery  textures,  and  deprive  them  of  it  until,  by 
its  saturation,  its  power  of  reception  is  exhausted, 
after  which  it  will  diffuse  into  the  current  of  circu- 
lating fluid. 

To  illustrate  this  fact  of  dilution,  I  perform  a 
simple  experiment.  Into  a  bladder  is  placed  a 


Diffusion  through  the  Organism.  73 

mixture  consisting  of  equal  parts  of  alcohol  and 
distilled  water.  Into  the  neck  of  the  bladder  a 
long  glass  tube  is  inserted  and  firmly  tied.  Then 
the  bladder  is  immersed  in  a  saline  fluid  represent- 
ing an  artificial  serum  of  blood.  The  result  is, 
that  the  alcohol  in  the  bladder  absorbs  water  from 
the  surrounding  saline  solution,  and  thereby  a 
column  of  fluid  passes  up  into  the  glass  tube.  A 
second  mixture  of  alcohol  and  water,  in  the  pro- 
portion this  time  of  one  part  of  alcohol  to  two  of 
water,  is  put  into  another  bladder  immersed  in 
like  manner  in  an  artificial  serum.  In  this  in- 
stance, a  little  fluid  also  passes  from  the  outside 
into  the  bladder,  so  that  there  is  a  rise  of  water  in 
the  tube,  but  less  than  in  the  previous  instance.  A 
third  mixture,  consisting  of  one  part  of  alcohol 
with  three  parts  of  water,  is  placed  in  another 
little  bladder,  and  is  also  suspended  in  the  artificial 
serum.  In  this  case  there  is,  for  a  time,  a  small 
rise  of  fluid  in  the  tube  connected  with  the  blad- 
der ;  but  after  a  while,  owing  to  the  dilution  which 
took  place,  a  current  from  within  outwards  sets  in, 
and  the  tube  becomes  empty.  Thus  each  bladder 
charged  originally  with  the  same  quantity  of  fluid 
contains  at  last  a  different  quantity.  The  first 
contains  more  than  it  did  originally ;  the  second  a 
little  more  ;  the  third  a  little  less.  From  the  third 
absorption  takes  place,  and  if  I  keep  changing  and 
replacing  the  outer  fluid  which  surrounds  the 
bladder  with  fresh  serum,  I  can  in  time,  owing  to 
the  double  current  of  water  into  the  bladder 
through  its  coats,  and  of  water  and  alcohol  out  of 
the  bladder  into  the  serum,  remove  all  the  alcohol 


74  On  Alcohol. 

In  this  way  it  is  removed  from  the  stomach  into 
the  circulating  blood  after  it  has  been  swallowed. 
When  we  dilute  alcohol  with  water  before  drinking 
it  we  quicken  its  absorption.  If  we  do  not  dilute 
it  sufficiently  it  is  diluted  in  the  stomach  by  trans- 
udation  of  water  in  the  stomach  until  the  required 
reduction  for  its  absorption ;  the  current  then  sets 
in  towards  the  blood,  and  passes  into  the  circulat- 
ing canals  by  the  veins. 

All  the  returning  veins  end  in  the  large  trunks 
which  terminate  in  the  central  organ  of  the  circu- 
lation— the  heart.  The  heart,  a  moving  muscular 
organ,  has  four  cavities ;  two  above  called  the  au- 
ricles, two  below  called  the  ventricles.  The  cavi- 
ties on  the  right  side  are  called  respectively  the 
right  auricle  and  right  ventricle ;  the  cavities  on 
the  left  side  are  called  respectively  the  left  auricle 
and  the  left  ventricle.  The  right  auricle  receives 
all  the  venous  blood  of  the  bod}'',  and  transmits  it 
to  the  right  ventricle ;  the  right  ventricle  drives 
the  blood  over  the  lungs  where  the  blood  is  ar- 
terialised ;  the  left  auricle  receives  the  blood  from 
the  lungs,  and  transmits  it  to  the  left  ventricle, 
which  in  turn  drives  it  through  the  arterial  tubes 
over  the  whole  of  the  body,  whence  it  returns 
again  by  the  veins  to  the  right  side  of  the  heart, 
and  so  on,  in  continuous  circuit. 

Alcohol,  therefore,  entering  the  veins,  makes  its 
way  in  the  course  I  have  described  tnrough  the 
right  heart,  through  the  lungs,  through  the  left 
heart,  through  the  body  at  large  by  the  arteries. 
This  is  the  course  of  its  travel  in  the  organism. 
What  does  it  do  as  it  makes  the  round  ? 


Diffusion  through  the  Organism.  75 

As  it  passes  through  the  circulation  of  the  lungs  it 
is  exposed  to  the  air,  and  some  little  of  it,  raised  into 
vapor  by  the  natural  heat,  is  thrown  off  in  expiration. 
If  the  quantity  of  it  be  large  this  loss  may  be  conside- 
rable, and  the  odor  of  the  spirit  may  be  detected  in 
the  expired  breath.  If  the  quantity  be  small  the 
loss  will  be  comparatively  little,  as  the  spirit  will 
be  held  in  solution  by  the  water  in  the  blood. 
After  it  has  passed  through  the  lungs,  and  has 
been  driven  by  the  left  heart  over  the  arterial  cir- 
cuit, it  passes  into  what  is  called  the  minute  circu- 
lation, or  the  structural  circulation  of  the  organism. 
The  arteries  here  extend  into  very  small  vessels, 
which  are  called  arterioles,  and  from  these  infi- 
nitely small  vessels  spring  the  equally  minute 
radicals  or  roots  of  the  veins  which  are  ultimately 
to  become  the  great  rivers  bearing  the  blood  back 
to  the  heart.  In  its  passage  through  this  minute 
circulation  the  alcohol  finds  its  way  to  every  organ. 
To  this  brain,  to  these  muscles,  to  these  secreting 
or  excreting  organs,  nay  even  into  this  bony  struc- 
ture itself,  it  moves  with  the  blood.  In  some  of 
these  parts  which  are  not  excreting,  it  remains  for 
a  time  diffused,  and  in  those  parts  where  there  is  a 
large  percentage  of  water  it  remains  longer  than  in 
other  parts.  From  some  organs  which  have  an 
open  tube  for  conveying  fluids  away,  as  the  liver 
and  kidneys,  it  is  thrown  out  or  eliminated,  and  in 
this  way  a  portion  of  it  is  ultimately  removed  from 
the  body.  The  rest  passing  round  and  round  with 
the  circulation,  is  probably  decomposed  and  -car- 
ried off  in  new  forms  of  matter ;  but  concerning 
this,  more  on  a  future  occasion 


/6  On  Alcohol. 

When  we  know  the  course  which  the  alcohol 
takes  in  its  passage  through  the  body,  from  the 
period  of  its  absorption  to  that  of  its  elimination, 
we  are  the  better  able  to  judge  what  physical 
changes  it  induces  in  the  different  organs  and 
structures  with  which  it  comes  in  contact.  It  first 
reaches  the  blood,  but,  as  a  rule,  the  quantity  of  it 
that  enters  is  insufficient  to  produce  any  material 
effect  on  that  fluid.  If,  however,  the  dose  taken  be 
poisonous  or  semi-poisonous,  then  even  the  blood, 
rich  as  it  is  in  water — and  it  contains  seven  hun- 
dred and  ninety  parts  in  a  thousand — is  affected. 
The  alcohol  is  diffused  through  this  water,  and 
there  it  comes  in  contact  with  the  other  constituent 
parts,  with  the  fibrine,  that  plastic  substance  which, 
when  blood  is  drawn,  clots  and  coagulates,  and 
which  is  present  in  the  proportion  of  from  two  to 
thrQe  parts  in  a  thousand  ;  with  the  albumen  which 
exists  in  the  proportion  of  seventy  parts ;  with  the 
salts  which  yield  about  ten  parts ;  with  the  fatty 
matters ;  and  lastly,  with  those  minute,  round 
bodies  which  float  in  myriads  in  the  blood  (which 
were  discovered  by  the  Dutch  philosopher,  Leu- 
wenhock,  as  one  of  the  first  results  of  microscopi- 
cal observation,  about  the  middle  of  the  seven- 
teenth century),  and  which  are  called  the  blood 
globules  or  corpuscles.  These  last  named  bodies 
are,  in  fact,  cells ;  their  discs,  when  natural,  have 
a  smooth  outline,  they  are  depressed  in  the  centre 
and  they  are  red  in  color;  the  color  of  the  blood 
being  derived  from  them.  We  have  discovered 
in  recent  years  that  there  exist  other  corpuscles  or 
cells  in  the  blood  in  much  smaller  quantity,  which 


Action  of  Alcohol  &n  the  Blood.  77 

are  called  white  cells,  and  these  different  cells  float 
in  the  blood-stream  within  the  vessels.  The  red 
take  the  centre  of  the  stream ;  the  white  lie  ex- 
ternally near  the  sides  of  the  vessels,  moving  less 
quickly.  Our  business  is  mainly  with  the  red 
corpuscles.  They  perform  the  most  important 
functions  in  the  economy ;  they  absorb,  in  great 
part,  the  oxygen  which  we  inhale  in  breathing,  and 
carry  it  to  the  extreme  tissues  of  the  body  ;  they 
absorb,  in  great  part,  the  carbonic  acid  gas  which 
is  produced  in  the  combustion  of  the  body  in  the 
extreme  tissues,  and  bring  that  gas  back  to  the 
lungs  to  be  exchanged  for  oxygen  there  ;  in  short, 
they  are  the  vital  instruments  of  the  circulation. 

With  all  these  parts  of  the  blood,  with  the  water, 
fibrine,  albumen,  salts,  fatty  matter,  and  corpuscles 
the  alcohol  comes  in  contact  when  it  enters  the 
blood,  and,  if  it  be  in  sufficient  quantity,  it  pro 
duces  disturbing  action.  I  have  watched  this  dis- 
turbance very  carefully  on  the  blood  corpuscles, 
for  in  some  animals  we  can  see  these  floating  along 
during  life,  and  we  can  also  observe  them  from 
men  who  are  under  alcohol  by  removing  a  speck 
of  blood,  and  examining  it  with  the  microscope. 
The  action  of  the  alcohol,  when  it  is  observable,  is 
varied.  It  may  cause  the  corpuscles  to  run  too 
closely  together,  and  to  adhere  in  rolls  ;  it  may 
modify  their  outline,  making  the  clear-defined 
smooth  outer  edge  irregular  or  crenate,  or  even 
starlike ;  it  may  change  the  round  corpuscle  into 
the  oval  form,  or,  in  very  extreme  cases  it  may 
produce  what  I  may  call  a  truncated  form  of  cor- 
puscles, in  which  the  change  is  so  great  that  if  we 


78  On  Alcohol. 

did  not  trace  it  through  all  its  stages  wo  should  be 
puzzled  to  know  whether  the  object  looked  at  were 
indeed  a  blood-cell.  All  these  changes  are  due  to 
the  action  of  the  spirit  upon  the  water  contained 
hi  the  corpuscles  ;  upon  the  capacity  of  the  spirit 
to  extract  water  from  them.  During  every  stage 
of  modification  of  corpuscle  thus  described,  their 
function  to  absorb  and  fix  gases  is  impaired,  and 
when  the  aggregation  of  the  cells,  in  masses,  is 
great,  other  difficulties  arise,  for  the  cells  united 
together  pass  less  easily  than  they  should  through 
the  minute  vessels  of  the  lungs  and  of  the  general 
circulation,  and  impede  the  current,  by  which  local 
injury  is  produced. 

A  further  action  upon  the  blood  instituted  by 
alcohol  in  excess,  is  upon  the  fibrine  or  the  plastic 
colloidal  matter.  On  this  the  spirit  may  act  in  two 
different  ways,  according  to  the  degree  in  which  it 
affects  the  water  that  holds  the  fibrine  in  solution. 
It  may  fix  the  water. with  the  fibrine,  and  thus  de- 
stroy the  power  of  coagulation  ;  or  it  may  extract 
the  water  so  determinately  as  to  produce  coagula- 
tion. These  facts  bear  on  a  new  and  refined  sub- 
ject of  research  with  which  I  must  not  trouble  you 
further,  except  to  add  that  the  inquiry  explains 
why  in  acute  cases  of  poisoning  by  alcohol  the 
blood  is  sometimes  found  quite  fluid,  at  other  times 
firmly  coagulated  in  the  vessels. 

These  are  the  only  points  I  have  time  to  touch 
upon  in  respect  to  the  physical  action  of  alcohol 
upon  blood.  I  must  pass  next  to  blood  vessels, 
and  trace  out  the  action  upon  these  fine  ramifica- 
tions of  the  larger  vessels  which  we  call  the  minute 


Action  of  Alcohol  on  the  Blood.  79 

circulation.  Upon  these  parts  the  spirit  exerts  a 
singular  influence,  from  which  arise  a  series  of 
phenomena,  characteristic  of  action  when  even  a 
moderate  quantity  of  spirit  is  taken  into  the  body. 
That  we  may  follow  out  this  position  clearly,  it  is 
essential  that  I  should  for  a  few  minutes  put  alco- 
hol out  of  sight  altogether  and  describe  the  me- 
chanism and  governance  of  this  minute  circulating 
system. 

If  any  of  you  ever  visited  the  Royal  College  of 
Physicians  you  would  find  there  a  system  of 
blood-vessels  dissected  and  traced  out  by  the  im- 
mortal discoverer  of  the  circulation  of  the  blood 
himself,  William  Harvey  ;  and  I  think  it  would 
strike  you,  as  you  looked  on,  that  all  the  organs  of 
the  body,  which  constitute  the  body  in  its  entirety, 
arc  built  upon  these  minute  vessels.  It  is  as 
though  Harvey  had  suggested  the  thought  that 
the  vascular  system  was  the  primary  part  of  the 
animal  organisation,  and  that  upon  it  were  planted 
and  developed  all  the  structures.  The  arteries  are 
all  beautifully  shown  branching  out  into  their  ex- 
treme divisions  and  giving  the  outline  of  the 
limbs,  of  the  brain,  of  the  visceral  parts,  and  of 
the  other  organs.  The  veins  are  seen  springing  or 
continuing  from  these  extreme  arterial  parts,  as 
rivers  may  be  said  to  spring,  and  to  form  at  last 
trunks  of  large  and  larger  size  by  which  they 
bring  back  the  blood  to  the  centre  of  the  circula- 
tion to  be  vivified  there  and  carried  on  again. 

From  this  distribution  of  blood  in  these  minute 
vessels  '.he  structures  of  organs  derive  their  con- 
stituent parts ;  through  these  vessels  brain  matter 


80  On  Alcohol. 

muscle,  gland,  membrane  is  given  out  from  the 
blood  by  a  refined  process  of  selection  of  material, 
vvnich,  up  to  this  time,  is  only  so  far  understood  as 
to  enable  us  to  say  tnat  it  exists. 

The  minute  and  intermediate,  vessels  are  more 
intimately  connected  than  any  other  part  with  the 
construction  and  with  the  function  of  the  living 
matter  of  which  the  body  is  composed.  Think 
you  that  this  mechanism  is  left  uncontrolled? 
No ;  the  vessels,  small  as  they  are,  are  under  dis- 
tinct control.  Infinitely  refined  in  structure,  they 
nevertheless  have  the  power  of  contraction  and 
dilatation,  which  power  is  governed  by  nervous 
action  of  a  special  kind.  If  we  pass  to  the  lower 
class  of  animals,  we  find,  running  along  the  body, 
in  addition  to  its  vascular  system,  a  series  of 
points  of  nervous  matter,  consisting  of  what  are 
called  ganglia.  These  ganglia  are  connected  to- 
gether in  chain,  and  from  them  filaments  of  nerves 
emanate,  which  are  distributed  to  all  the  active 
moving  parts  of  the  body.  In  such  lower  animals 
the  nervous  system  thus  described  stands  alone, 
and  when  we  rise  in  the  scale  and  come  even  to 
man  we  find  still  the  same  primitive  nervous  chain. 
But  we  find  also  now  another  and  more  highly  de- 
veloped nervous  system,  the  centres  of  which  are 
locked  up  in  the  brain  and  spinal  column,  from 
which  centres  nerves  of  special  sense  go  into  the. 
organs  of  sense,  nerves  of  sensibility  or  common 
sensation  go  to  the  skin  and  other  sensitive  sur- 
faces, and  nerves  of  voluntary  motion  go  to  the 
muscles,  all  combining  to  perform  their  respective 
functions  in  the  animal  economy. 


Nervous  Systems  of  the  Body,  8l 

Thus  man  has  two  nervous  systems  :  the  primary 
nervous  chain  and  the  added  centres,  with  their 
fibres.  The  two  systems  arc  connected  by  their 
fibres  in  different  parts,  but  they  are  still  distinct, 
both  anatomically  and  functionally.  The  primary 
nervous  system  is  called  the  s}-stem  of  the  organic 
vegetative  or  animal  life  ;  it  governs  all  those  mo- 
tions which  are  purely  involuntary,  and  its  centres 
are  believed  by  some,  and  I  think  with  perfect  cor- 
rectness, to  be  the  seats  of  those  faculties  which 
we  call  emotional  and  instinctive.  The  centres  of 
the  brain  and  spinal  cord,  with  their  parts,  are  the 
centres  of  the  motor  and  volitional  and  of  the  rea- 
soning powers  ;  of  all  those  faculties,  that  is  to  say, 
which  are  directly  under  the  influence  of  the 
will. 

Keep  in  mind,  if  you  please,  the  two  nervous 
systems,  and  add  to  the  remembrance  this  one  ad- 
ditional fact,  that  all  those  minute  blood-vessels  at 
the  extremities  of  the  circulation  are  under  the 
control  of  the  primary  or  organic  nervous  supply. 
Branches  of  nerves  from  those  organic  centres 
accompany  every  arterial  vessel  throughout  the 
body  to  its  termination,  and  \vithout  direction  from 
our  will  regulate  the  contraction  and  dilation  of 
the  blood-vessels  to  their  most  refined  distribution. 
This  fact  was  suspected  by  the  older  anatomists, 
but  it  remained  for  modern  research  to  make  it  a 
demonstration.  Thus  it  has  now  been  proved  that 
if  the  organic  nervous  supply  of  a  part  of  the 
minute  circulation  be  cut  off  by  division  of  the 
organic  nerve  feeding  that  part,  the  vessels  become 
paralysed,  as  these  flexor  muscles  of  my  hand, 


82  On  Alcohol. 

which  now  grasp  so  firmly,  would  be  paralysed 
were  their  voluntary  nervous  supply  divided. 

It  will  be  clear  at  once  that  an  important  ad- 
vancement of  knowledge  respecting  the  course  of 
the  blood  through  the  minute  circulation  has  been 
gained ;  but  our  knowledge  does  not  rest  at  this 
point.  When  certain  simple  physical  impressions 
are  made  upon  the  organic  nerves,  the  disturbance 
of  their  supply  is  indicated  by  distant  phenomena, 
and  the  blush  which  mantles,  and  the  pallor  which 
overspreads  the  cheek,  under  the  influence  of 
mental  emotion  or  shock,  are  phenomena  of  this 
order. 

I  can  bring  to  your  notice  an  experiment,  show- 
ing the  production  of  paralysis,  and  of  all  the  phe- 
nomena above  quoted  by  the  mere  action  of  cold 
upon  the  organic  nervous  fibre.  By  evaporating 
ether  from  the  back  of  my  hand  quickly,  I  can 
freeze  the  skin,  and  thereby  produce  paralysis.  I 
take  the  ether  away,  and  now  into  the  .paralysed 
vessels,  which  are  capable  of  offering  no  efficient 
resistance,  the  blood  rushes,  distending  the  ves- 
sels, remaining  for  a  moment  stagnant  in  them, 
and  giving  a  brilliant  red  color  or  crimson  blush 
Over  the  part.  I  feel  in  this  part  the  glow  com- 
monly called  hot-ache ;  it  is  the  blush  which  oc- 
curs on  the  cheek,  and  it  is  from  the  same  physio- 
logical condition. 

Still  further  in  advance,  and  with  the  mention 
of  the  fact,  I  am  brought  back  to  the  subject 
proper  of  my  lecture :  we  have  learned  that  cer- 
tain chemical  agents  can  so  influence  tl  e  organic 
nervous  chain  as  to  disturb  its  functions,  after  the 


Paralysis  of  Blood-Vessels.  83 

manner  of  a  pure  physical  act.  When  the  pecu- 
liar fluid  the  nitrite  of  amyl,  to  which  I  have  be- 
fore called  your  attention,  came  before  me  for  in- 
vestigation, I  divined,  from  the  symptoms  it  pro- 
duced, that  it  influenced  the  organic  nervous  fibre 
precisely  after  the  manner  of  a  division  of  that 
fibre.  I  dipped  a  spill  of  paper  into  the  liquid, 
brought  that  near  to  my  nose,  inhaled  the  vapor, 
and  immediately  felt  my  face  in  a  red  glow,  as 
you  see  it  again  at  this  moment,  and  felt  my  heart 
beating  rapidly,  as  I  feel  it  beating  at  the  present 
time.  I  reasoned,  naturally,  and  as  events  proved, 
correctly,  that  this  fluid,  by  its  action  on  the  or- 
ganic nerves,  paralysed  the  vessels  of  the  minute 
circulation,  and  finding  this  to  obtain  with  one 
chemical  agent  I  traced  it  in  others,  and  found  a 
class  of  chemical  substances,  all  of  which  'have  this 
same  property  of  relaxing  the  blood-vessels  at 
their  extreme  parts.  The  whole  series  of  the 
nitrites  possess  this  power;  ether  possesses  it; 
but  the  great  point  I  want  to  bring  forth  from 
this  description  is,  that  the  substance  we  are 
specially  dealing  with,  alcohol,  possesses  the  self 
same  power.  By  this  influence  it  produces  all 
those  peculiar  effects  which  in  every-day  life  are 
so  frequently  illustrated.  It  paralyses  the  minute 
blood-vessels,  and  allows  them  to  become  dilated 
with  the  flowing  blood. 

If  you  attend  a  large  dinner  party,  you  will 
observe  after  the  first  few  courses,  when  the  wine 
is  beginning  to  circulate,  a  progressive  change  in 
some  of  those  about  you  who  have  taken  wine. 
The  face  begins  to  get  flushed,  the  eye  brightens, 


84  On  Alcohol. 

and  the  murmur  of  conversation  becomes  loud. 
What  is  the  reason  of  that  flushing  of  the  counte- 
nance ?  It  is  the  same  as  the  flush  from  blushing, 
or  from  the  reaction  of  cold,  or  from  the  nitrite  of 
amyl.  It  is  the  dilatation  of  vessels  following 
upon  the  reduction  of  nervous  control,  which  re- 
duction has  been  induced  by  the  alcohol.  In  a 
word,  the  first  stage,  the  stage  of  vascular  excite- 
ment from  alcohol,  has  been  established. 

The  action  of  the  alcohol  extending  so  far  does 
not  stop  there.  With  the  disturbance  of  power  in 
the  extreme  vessels,  more  disturbance  is  set  up  in 
other  organs,  and  the  firsi  organ  that  shares  in  it 
is  the  heart.  With  each  beat  of  the  heart  a  cer- 
tain degree  of  resistance  is  offered  by  the  vessels 
when  their  nervous  supply  is  perfect,  and  the 
stroke  of  the  heart  is  moderated  in  respect  both  to 
tension  and  to  time.  But  when  the  vessels  are 
rendered  relaxed,  the  resistance  is  removed,  the 
heart  begins  to  run  quicker,  like  a  watch  from 
which  the  pallets  have  been  removed,  and  the 
heart-stroke,  losing  nothing  in  force,  is  greatly 
increased  in  frequency,  with  a  weakened  recoil 
stroke.  It  is  easy  to  account  in  this  manner  for 
the  quickened  heart  and  pulse  which  accompany 
the  first  stage  of  deranged  action  from  alcohol, 
and  you  will  be  interested  to  know  to  what  extent 
this  increase  of  vascular  action  proceeds  The  in- 
formation on  this  point  is  exceedingly  curious  and 
important.  After  I  had  observed  the  effect  of 
alcohol  on  the  circulation  generally,  I  attempted 
to  calculate  the  rate  at  which  it  expedited  the 
rate  of  circulation  by  observing  its  effect  on  the 


Paralysis  of  Blood  Vessels.  85 

beat  of  the  heart  in  the  pigeon.  Alcohol  may  be 
administered  to  this  bird  quite  painlessly,  and,  as 
the  animal  quickly  goes  to  sleep  under  the  influ- 
ence, and  is  therefore  perfectly  quiet,  the  beatings 
of  its  heart  can  be  calculated  with  precision.  I 
traced  in  these  observations  an  increase  of  beats 
of  the  heart  amounting,  in  the  course  of  two  hours, 
to  one-fourth  beyond  what  wras  natural.  Then  I 
essayed  to  make  researches  on  myself,  but  many 
circumstances  intervened,  connected  with  the  per- 
sistent labor  and  anxiety  of  professional  life,  which 
prevented  me  conducting  the  necessary  opera- 
tions so  correctly  as  I  desired,  and  as  I  might 
perhaps  at  another  time  have  done.  Fortunately, 
the  information  has  been  far  more  ably  supplied 
by  the  researches  of  Dr.  Parkes,  of  Netley,  and 
the  late  Count  Wollowicz.  The  researches  of 
these  distinguished  inquirers  are  so  valuable  I 
make  no  apology  for  giving  them  in  detail.  The 
observers  conducted  their  inquiries  on  the  young 
and  healthy  adult  man.  They  counted  the  beats 
of  the  heart,  first  at  regular  intervals,  during  what 
were  called  water  periods,  that  is  to  say,  periods 
when  the  subject  under  observation  drank  nothing 
but  water  ;  and  next,  taking  still  the  same  subject, 
they  counted  the  beats  of  the  heart  during  succes- 
sive periods  in  which  alcohol  was  taken  in  increas- 
ing quantities.  Thus  step  by  step  they  measured  the 
precise  action  of  alcohol  on  the  heart,  and  thereby 
the  precise  primary  influence  induced  by  alcohol. 
The  results  are  stated  by  themselves  as  follows: — 
The  average  number  of  beats  of  the  heart  in  24 
hours  (as  calculated  from  eight  observations  made 


86  On  Alcohol. 

in  14  hours),  during  the  first,  or  water  period,  was 
106,000 ;  in  the  earlier  alcoholic  period  it  was 
127,000  or  about  21,000  more;  and  in  the  later 
period  it  was  131,000  or  25,000  more. 

"The  highest  of  the  daily  means  of  the  pulse 
observed  during  the  first  or  water  period  was 
77.5 ;  but  on  this  day  two  observations  are  defi- 
cient. The  next  highest  daily  mean  was  77  beats. 

"  If,  instead  of  the  mean  of  the  eight  days,  or 
73.57,  we  compare  the  mean  of  this  one  day,  viz., 
77  beats  per  minute,  with  the  alcoholic  days,  so  as 
to  be  sure  not  to  over-estimate  the  action  of  the 
alcohol,  we  find : — 

"  On  the  Qth  day,  with  one  fluid  ounce  of  alco- 
hol, the  heart  beat  4,300  times  more. 

"On  the  loth  day,  with  two  fluid  ounces, -8,172 
times  more. 

"  On  the  nth  day,  with  four  fluid  ounces,  12,960 
times  more. 

"On  the  I2th  day,  with  six  fluid  ounces,  30,672 
times  more. 

"  On  the  1 3th  day,  with  eight  fluid  ounces,  23,904 
times  more. 

"  On  the  I4th  day,  with  eight  fluid  ounces,  25,488 
times  more. 

"  But  as  there  was  ephemeral  fever  on  the  I2th 
day,  it  is  right  to  make  a  deduction,  and  to  esti- 
mate the  number  of  beats  in  that  day  as  midway 
between  the  I  ith  and  I3th  days,  or  18,432.  Adopt- 
ing this,  the  mean  daily  excess  of  beats  during  the 
alcoholic  days  was  14,492,  or  an  increase  of  father 
more  than  13  per  cent. 

"  The  first  day  of  alcohol  gave  an  excess  of  4 


Action  of  Akohol  on  the  Heart.  b? 

per  cent.,  and  the  last  of  23  per  cent. ;  and  the 
mean  of  these  two  give's  almost  the  same  percent- 
age of  excess  as  the  mean  of  the  six  days. 

"  Admitting  that  each  beat  of  the  heart  was  as 
strong  during  the  alcoholic  period  as  in  the  water 
period  (and  it  was  really  more  powerful),  the  heart 
on  the  last  two  days  of  alcohol  was  doing  one- 
fifth  more  work. 

"  Adopting  the  lowest  estimate  which  has  been 
given  of  the  daily  work  of  the  heart,  viz.,  as  equal 
to  122  tons  lifted  one  foot,  the  heart  during  the 
alcoholic  period  did  daily  work  in  excess  equal  to 
lifting  15.8  tons  one  foot,  and  in  the  last  two  days 
did  extra  work  to  the  amount  of  24  tons  lifted 
as  far. 

"The  period  of  rest  for  the  heart  was  short- 
ened, though,  perhaps,  not  to  such  an  extent  as 
would  be  inferred  from  the  number  of  beats,  for 
each  contraction  was  sooner  over.  The  heart,  on 
the  fifth  and  sixth  days  after  alcohol  was  left  off, 
and  apparently  at  the  time  when  the  last  traces  of 
alcohol  were  eliminated,  showed  in  the  sphygmo- 
graphic  tracings  signs  of  unusual  feebleness ;  and, 
perhaps,  in  consequence  of  this,  when  the  brandy 
quickened  the  heart  again,  the  tracings  showed  a 
more  rapid  contraction  of  the  ventricles,  but  less 
power  than  in  the  alcoholic  period.  The  brandy 
acted,  in  fact,  on  a  heart  whose  nutrition  had  not 
been  perfectly  restored." 

It  will  seem  at  first  sight  almost  incredible  that 
such  an  excess  of  work  could  be  put  upon  the 
heart,  but  it  is  perfectly  credible  when  all  the 
facts  are  known.  The  heart  of  an  adult  man 


88  On  Alcohol. 

makes,  as  we  see  above,  73.57  strokes  per  minute. 
This  number  multiplied  by  sixty  lor  the  hour,  and 
again  by  twenty-four  hours  for  the  entire  day, 
would  give  nearly  106,000  as  the  number  of  strokes 
per  day.  There  is,  however,  a  reduction  of  stroke 
produced  by  assuming  the  recumbent  position  and 
by  sleep,  so  that  for  simplicity's  sake  we  may  take 
off  the  6,000  strokes,  and  speaking  generally  may 
put  the  average  at  100,000  in  the  entire  day.  With 
each  of  these  strokes  the  two  ventricles  of  the 
heart,  as  they  contract,  lift  up  into  their  respective 
vessels  three  ounces  of  blood  each,  that  is  to  say, 
six  ounces  with  the  combined  stroke,  or  600,000  in 
the  twenty-four  hours.  The  equivalent  of  work 
rendered  by  this  simpler  calculation  would  be  116 
foot  tons  ;  and  if  we  estimate  the  increase  of  work 
induced  by  alcohol  we  shall  mid  that  four  ounces 
of  spirit  increase  it  one-eighth  part ;  six  ounces, 
one-sixth  part ;  and  eight  ounces,  one-fourth  part. 
The  stage  of  primary  excitement  of  the  circula- 
tion thus  induced  lasts  for  a  considerable  time,  but 
at  length  the  heart  flags  from  its  over  action,  and 
requires  the  stimulus  of  more  spirit  to  carry  it  on 
in  its  work.  Let  us  take  what  we  may  call  a  mo- 
derate amount  of  alcohol,  say  two  ounces  by  vol- 
ume, in  form  of  wine,  or  beer,  or  spirits.  What  is 
called  strong  sherry  or  port  may  contain  as  much 
as  twenty-five  per  cent,  by  volume.  Brandy  over 
fifty;  gin,  thirty-eight;  rum,  forty-eight;  whisky, 
forty-three;  vin  ordinaire,  eight;  strong  ale,  four- 
teen ;  champagne,  ten  to  eleven  ;  it  matters  not 
which,  if  the  quantity  of  alcohol  be  regulated  by 
the  amount  present  in  the  liquor  imbibed.  When 


Congestion  of  Vital  Organs,  89 

we  reach  the  two  ounces,  a  distinct  physiological 
effect  follows,  leading  on  to  that  first  stage  of  ex- 
citement with  which  we  are  now  conversant.  The 
reception  of  the  spirit  arrested  at  this  point,  there 
need  be  no  important  mischief  done  to  the  organ- 
ism ;  but  if ,  the  quantity  imbibed  be  increased, 
further  changes  quickly  occur.  We  have  seen  that 
all  the  organs  of  the  body  are  built  upon  the  vas- 
cular structures,  and  therefore  it  follows  that  a 
prolonged  paralysis  of  the  minute  circulation  must 
of  necessity  lead  to  disturbance  in  other  organs 
than  the  heart. 

By  common  observation  the  flush  seen  on  the 
cheek  during  the  first  stage  of  alcoholic  excitation 
is  presumed  to  extend  merely  to  the  parts  actually 
exposed  to  view.  It  cannot,  however,  be  too 
forcibly  impressed  that  the  condition  is  universal 
in  the  body.  If  the  lungs  could  be  seen,  they  too 
would  be  found  with  their  vessels  injected  ;  if  the 
brain  and  spinal  cord  could  be  laid  open  to  view, 
they  would  be  discovered  in  the  same  condition  ; 
if  the  stomach,  the  liver,  the  spleen,  the  kidneys, 
or  any  other  vascular  organs  or  parts  could  be 
exposed,  the  vascular  engorgement  would  be 
equally  manifest.  In  the  lower  animals  I  have 
been  able  to  witness  this  extreme  vascular  condi- 
tion in  the  lungs,  and  there  are  here  presented  to 
you  two  drawings  from  nature,  showing,  one  the 
lungs  in  a  natural  state  of  an  animal  killed  by  a 
sudden  blow,  the  other  the  lungs  of  an  animal 
killed  equally  suddenly,  but  at  a  time  when  it  was 
under  the  influence  of  alcohol.  You  will  see,  as 
if  you  were  looking  at  the  structures  themselves, 


po  On  Alcohol. 

how  different  they  are  in  respect  to  the  bx)od 
which  they  contained,  how  intensely  charged  with 
blood  is  the  lung  in  which  the  vessels  had  been 
paralysed  by  the  alcoholic  spirit. 

I  once  had  the  unusual,  though  unhappy,  oppor- 
tunity of  observing  the  same  phenomenon  in  the 
brain  structure  of  a  man  who,  in  a  paroxysm  of  al- 
coholic excitement,  decapitated  himself  under  the 
wheel  of  a  railway  carriage,  and  whose  brain  was 
instantaneously  evolved  from  the  skull  by  the 
crash.  The  brain  itself,  entire,  was  before  me 
within  three  minutes  after  the  death.  It  exhaled 
the  odor  of  spirit  most  distinctly,  and  its  mem- 
branes and  minute  structures  were  vascular  in  the 
extreme.  It  looked  as  if  it  had  been  recently  in- 
jected with  vermilion.  The  white  matter  of  the 
cerebrum,  studded  with  red  points,  could  scarcely 
be  distinguished,  when  it  was  incised,  by  its  natu- 
ral whiteness ;  and  the  pia-mater,  or  internal  vascu- 
lar membrane  covering  the  brain,  resembled  a 
delicate  web  of  coagulated  red  blood,  so  tensely 
were  its  fine  vessels  engorged. 

I  should  add  that  this  condition  extended 
through  both  the  larger  and  the  smaller  brain, 
the  cerebrum  and  cerebellum,  but  was  not  so 
marked  in  the  medulla  or  commencing  portion 
of  the  spinal  cord. 

The  action  of  alcohol  continued  beyond  the  first 
stage,  the  function  of  the  spinal  cord  is  influenced. 
Through  this  part  of  the  nervous  system  we  are 
accustomed,  in  health,  to  perform  automatic  acts 
of  a  mechanical  kind,  which  proceed  systemati- 
cally even  when  we  are  thinking  or  speakino-  on 


Action  on  the  Nervous  Centres.  91 

other  subjects.  Thus  a  skilled  workman  will  con. 
tinue  his  mechanical  work  perfectly,  while  his 
mind  is  bent  on  some  other  subject ;  and  thus  we 
all  perform  various  acts  in  a  purely  automatic 
way,  without  calling  in  the  aid  of  the  higher  cen- 
tres, except  something  nfore  than  ordinary  occurs 
to  demand  their  service,  upon  which  we  think  be- 
fore we  perform.  Under  alcohol,  as  the  spinal 
centres  become  influenced,  these  pure  automatic 
acts  cease  to  be  correctly  carried  on.  That 
the  hand  may  reach  any  object,  or  the  foot  be 
correctly  planted,  the  higher  intellectual  centre 
must  be  invoked  to  make  the  proceeding  secure. 
There  follows  quickly  upon  this  a  deficient  power 
of  co-ordination  of  muscular  movement.  |  The  ner« 
vous  control  of  certain  of  the  muscles  is  lost,  and 
the  nervous  stimulus  is  more  or  less  enfeebled. 
The  muscles  of  the  lower  lip  in  the  human  sub- 
ject usually  fail  first  of  all,  then  the  muscles  of  the 
lower  limbs,  and  it  is  worthy  of  remark  that  the 
extensor  muscles  give  way  earlier  than  the  flex- 
ors. The  muscles  themselves  by  this  time  are  also 
failing  in  power ;  they  respond  more  feebly  than 
is  natural  to  the  nervous  stimulus ;  they,  too,  are 
coming  under  the  depressing  influence  of  the 
paralysing  agent,  their  structure  is  temporarily 
deranged,  and  their  contractile  power  reduced. 

This  modification  of  the  animal  functions  under 
alcohol  marks  the  second  degree  of  its  action.  In 
young  subjects  there  is  now,  usually,  vomiting  with 
faintness,  followed  by  gradual  relief  from  the  bur- 
den o£  the  poison. 

The  alcoholic  spirit  carried  yet  a  further  degree, 


92  On  Alcohol. 

the  cerebral  or  brain  centres  become  influenced ; 
they  are  reduced  in  power,  and  the  controlling"  in- 
fluences of  will  and  of  judgment  are  lost.  As  these 
centres  are  unbalanced  and  thrown  into  chaos,  the 
rational  part  of  the  nature  of  the  man  gives  way 
before  the  emotional,  passional,  or  organic  part. 
The  reason  is  now  off  duty,  or  is  fooling  with  duty, 
and  all  the  mere  animal  instincts  and  sentiments 
are  laid  atrociously  bare.  The  coward  shows  up 
more  craven,  the  braggart  more  boastful,  the  cruel 
more  merciless,  the  untruthful  more  false,  the  carnal 
more  degraded.  "In  vino  veritas"  expresses,  even 
indeed  to  physiological  accuracy,  the  true  condi- 
tion. The  reason,  the  emotions,  the  instincts,  are 
all  in  a  state  of  carnival,  and  in  chaotic  feebleness. 

Finally,  the  action  of  the  alcohol  still  extending, 
the  superior  brain  centres  are  overpowered ;  the 
senses  are  beclouded,  the  voluntary  muscular  pros- 
tration is  perfected,  sensibility  is  lost,  and  the  body 
lies  a  mere  log,  dead  by  all  but  one-fourth,  on 
which  alone  its  life  hangs.  The  heart  still  remains 
true  to  its  duty,  and  while  it  just  lives  it  feeds  the 
breathing  power.  And  so  the  circulation  and  the 
respiration,  in  the  otherwise  inert  mass,  keeps  the 
mass  within  the  bare  domain  of  life  until  the  poison 
begins  to  pass  away  and  the  nervous  centres  to  re- 
vive again.  It  is  happy  for  the  inebriate  that,  as  a 
rule,  the  brain  fails  so  long  before  the  heart  that 
he  has  neither  the  power  nor  the  sense  to  continue 
his  process  of  destruction  up  to  the  act  of  death  of 
his  circulation.  Therefore  he  lives  to  die  another 
day. 

Thus  there  are  four  stages  of  alcoholic  action  in 


Action  on  the  Nervous  Centres.  93 

the  primary  form:—  (a)  A  stage  of  vascular  excite- 
ment and  exhaustion  ;  (ft)  a  stage  of  excitement  and 
exhaustion  of  the  spinal  cord,  with  muscular  per- 
turbation ;  (c}  a  stage  of  unbalanced  reasoning 
power  and  of  volition ;  (d)  a  stage  of  complete 
collapse  of  nervous  function. 

Such  is  an  outline  of  the  primary  action  of  alco- 
hol on  those  who  may  be  said  to  be  unaccustomed 
to  it,  or  who  have  not  yet  fallen  into  a  fixed  habit 
of  taking  it.  For  a  long  time  the  organism  will 
bear  these  perversions  of  its  functions  without  ap- 
parent injury,  but  if  the  experiment  be  repeated 
too  often  and  too  long,  if  it  be  continued  after  the 
term  of  life  when  the  body  is  fully  developed,  when 
the  elasticity  of  the  membranes  and  of  the  blood  ves- 
sels is  lessened,  and  when  the  tone  of  the  muscular 
fibre  is  reduced,  then  organic  series  of  structural 
changes,  so  characteristic  of  the  persistent  effects  of 
spirit,  become  prominent  and  permanent.  Then  the 
external  surface  becomes  darkened  and  congested, 
its  vessels,  in  parts,  visibly  large ;  the  skin  be-  • 
comes  blotched,  the  proverbial  red  nose  is  denned, 
and  those  other  striking  vascular  changes  which 
disfigure  many  who  may  probably  be  called  mode- 
rate alcoholics,  are  developed.  These  changes,  be- 
longing as  they  do  to  external  surfaces,  come  under 
direct  observation ;  they  are  accompanied  with 
certain  other  changes  in  the  internal  organs,  which 
we  shall  discover  in  a  futu'  e  lecture  to  be  more 
destructive  still. 


LECTURE  IV. 

THi:  POSITION  OF  ALCOHOL  AS  A  FOOD.  EFFECTS 
OF  ALCOHOL  ON  THE  ANIMAL  TEMPERATURE. 
HYGIENIC  LESSONS. 

THE  question  that  lies  before  us  for  discussion 
in  this  lecture  is  short  and  definite.  It  is  included 
in  the  three  words :  Is  alcohol  food  ? 

We  have  studied  in  the  previous  lecture  the 
purely  physical  action  of  alcohol  on  the  animal 
body,  that  which  stands  apart  from  the  action  of 
food,  and  we  have  learned  from  the  study  that  over 
the  nervous  system  and  over  the  vascular  supply 
this  spirit  exerts  a  specific  influence.  We  now  in- 
quire whether  the  influence  ends  there,  or  whether 
there  may  be,  in  addition,  either  a  sustaining,  and 
constructing,  or  a  heat-giving  power — that  is  to 
say,  a  force-giving  quality  in  it.  If  there  be,  then 
the  simple  physical  effects  are  perchance  tolerable, 
or  at  all  events  are  not  sufficient  to  militate  against 
the  advantages  which  lie  on  the  food  side  of  tke 
question. 

It  may  be  well  to  rest  for  a  moment  to  consider 
the  position  of  men  and  animals  upon  the  earth  in 
relation  to  the  means  given  to  them  for  their  sup- 
port as  living,  moving,  and,  in  the  higher  animals, 
thinking  structures.  This  position  is  well-defined. 
The  theory  that  man  was  made  originally  out  of 
the  dust  of  the  earth  is  after  all,  the  most  scientific 


Natural  Fluid  Foods.  95 

tun*.  /  that  has  ever  been  advanced  as  to  his 
primeval  origin,  if  the  word  dust  be  only  extended 
so  as  to  include  the  actual  compound  substance  of 
the  eartu.  For  in  the  earth  are  to  be  found  not 
only  all  the  elements  out  of  which  he  is  constructed, 
but  even  certain  of  the  elements  in  the  same  kind  of 
combination  as  we  find  them  in  him.  In  the  earth 
water,  salts,  and  organic  matter  are  found ;  in  man 
the  same  are  found.  The  man  is  in  many  respects 
of  motion  a  reflex  of  the  motion  of  the  earth,  pre- 
senting periodicities  of  movements,  and  of  move- 
ments in  a  circle  in  like  mode.  As  if  to  complete 
the  analogy,  this  remains  true,  that  the  earth 
yields  spontaneously  to  man,  either  from  herself 
directly  or  from  the  vegetable  kingdom  which  lies 
between  her  and  man,  all  the  requirements  for 
his  existence.  Whatever,  .therefore,  man  invents, 
though  it  may  seem  to  be  a  great  necessity,  is  not 
a  necessity  except  to  those  who,  being  trained  to 
its  use,  have  been  led  artificially  to  believe  it 
essential.  Thus  nature  has  produced  water  and 
milk  for  man  to  drink,  and  they  are,  in  truth,  all 
the  fluids  that  are  essential.  This  lesson,  which 
nature  teaches  by  her  rule  of  provision  for  the 
necessities  of  animal  life,  is  supplemented  by  many 
other  facts,  each  equally  authoritative.  There  is 
ever  before  us  the  great  experiment  that  all  classes 
of  living  beings  beneath  man  require  as  drink  none 
other  fluids  except  those  I  have  named.  We  see 
the  most  useful  of  these  animals  performing  labori- 
ous tasks,  undergoing  extremes  of  fatigue,  bearing 
vicissitudes  of  heat  and  of  cold,  and  enduring1 
work,  fatigue,  and  vicissitude  for  long  series  of 


96  On  Alcohol. 

years,  sustained  by  their  solid  food,  with  no  other 
fluid  than  simple  water.  We  see  again  whole 
nations  and  races  of  men  who  labor  hard,  endure 
fatigue  and  exposure,  and  who  live  to  the  end  of  a 
long  and  healthy  life,  taking  with  their  solid  sus- 
tenance water  only  as  a  beverage. 

When  we  turn  to  the  physiological  construction 
either  of  man  or  of  a  lower  animal,  we  discover 
nothing  that  can  lead  us  to  conceive  the  necessity 
for  any  other  fluid  than  that  which  nature  has 
supplied.  The  mass  of  the  blood  is  composed  of 
water,  the  mass  of  the  nervous  system  is  composed 
of  water,  the  mass  of  all  the  active  vital  organs  is 
made  up  of  the  same  fluid :  the  secretions  are 
watery  fluids,  and  if  in  any  of  these  parts  any 
other  agent  than  water  should  replace  it,  the  re- 
sult is  an  instant  disturbance  of  function  that  is 
injurious  in  proportion  to  the  displacement. 

When  we  turn  therefore  to  the  use  of  such  a 
fluid  as  alcohol  under  any  of  its  disguises — as  spirit, 
as  wine,  as  beer,  as  cider,  as  perry,  as  liqueur, — 
we  are  driven  a  priori  to  look  upon  it  as  something 
superadded  to  the  necessities  of  life  ;  to  look  upon 
it,  in  a  word,  as  a  luxury.  In  such  sense  it  has 
always  been  received  amongst  those  nations  which 
have  most  indulged  in  it.  It  is  something  added 
to  the  ordinary  life ;  something  unnecessary,  but 
agreeable.  Wine,  added  to  the  meal,  transforms 
the  meal  into  a  feast ;  it  is  supposed  to  make  glad 
the  heart,  but  it  is  never  supposed  that  if  the  wine 
were  not  possessed  the  life  would  be  shortened. 
When  now  we  offer  wine,  it  is,  by  the  effect  of 
habit  and  education,  an  offering  of  a  thing  that  is 


Constructive  Materials  of  the  Body.          97 

super-necessitous,  and  in  such  wise  a  compliment, 
an  indication  of  desire  or  oi  willingness  to  be  ex- 
ceedingly hospitable. 

All  the  evidence  of  a  general  kind  which  can  be 
gathered  from  these  observations  points  to  the 
uselessness,  for  man,  of  such  an  artificial  agent  as 
alcohol.  But,  after  all,  an  assumption  so  derived 
may  be  false.  We  have  already  seen  that  when 
alcoholic  spirit  is  taken  into  the  animal  body  it 
produces  in  it  exceedingly  marked  effects ;  it  may 
therefore,  by  accident,  I  might  almost  say,  play  in 
some  manner  the  part  of  a  food  and  supplement 
water.  Indeed,  it  is  a  form  of  water  in  which  a 
compound  of  carbon  and  hydrogen  has  replaced 
hydrogen.  Let  us,  then,  ask  the  question  :  Can 
alcohol  be  in  any  sense  accepted  as  performing 
any  other  part  in  the  body  save  that  physical  part 
which  we  have  considered  ?  Can  it  have  hap- 
pened that  man,  by  his  invention,  has  added,  to 
nature,  a  food  ?  And  let  us  answer  the  question 
as  candidly  as  the  facts  of  experiment  and  ex- 
perience will  permit. 

CONSTRUCTIVE   MATERIALS   OF  THE    BODY. 

The  living  animal  body  is  constructed  out  of  a 
few  simple  forms  of  matter  which  possess,  during 
life,  the  power  of  motion.  It  is,  in  its  living  state, 
a  noun  'and  a  verb.  Whatever  helps  to  maintain 
it  in  perfect  order  of  construction,  whatever  en- 
ables it  to  move  of  its  own  mere  will  and  motion, 
may  be  considered  as  a  food.  The  one  gives  mat- 
ter and  mass,  the  other  gives  force  or  spirit  to  the 
mass.  With  the  progress  of  organic  chemistry 


98  On  Alcohol. 

after  the  discovery  of  the  art  of  organic  analysis, 
it  soon  became  evident  that  what  are  called  foods 
are  divisible  into  two  great  classes  ;  those  which 
supply  material  or  tissue,  and  those  which  supply 
heat  or  other  variety  of  force.  Gradually  it  was 
detected  that  the  building  foods  all  contain  the 
element  nitrogen  as  an  essential  part,  and  that  the 
force-supplying  foods  are  free  of  nitrogen  and  are 
hydro-carbons,  substances  that  will  undergo  com- 
bustion by  oxidation,  and  liberate  force  for  the 
motive  uses  of  the  economy.  So,  foods  have  for  a 
long  time  been  sharply  classified  as  nitrogenous 
or  tissue-feeding,  and  as  respiratory  or  heat-pro- 
ducing. At  the  present  moment  this  long  accept- 
ed view  is  undergoing  some  modification.  It  is 
being  elicited  that  the  nitrogenous  foods  are  to  a 
certain  degree  heat-producing ;  but  I  need  not  at 
this  stage  enter  on  the  nice  question  involved.  I 
may  safely,  for  the  practical  purpose  we  have  in 
view,  let  the  division  of  the  classes  of  foods  re- 
main as  described  above. 

The  nitrogenous  foods  exist  in  the  animal  body 
in  the  form  of  what  is  called  colloidal  matter,  the 
word  colloidal  being  a  term  signifying  a  jelly-like 
substance.  The  purest  form  of  this  matter  is  found 
in  the  blood  in  the  white,  elastic,  plastic  matter, 
called  fibrine.  By  repeated  washings  of  a  portion 
of  this  substance,  I  have  prepared  here,  from  the 
blood  of  the  ox,  a  beautiful  specimen  of  this  col- 
loid of  the  blood.  Of  a  similar  colloidal  substance 
the  moving  muscles  are  formed.  In  a  fluid  state, 
and  permanently  fluid  at  the  temperature  of  the 
living  body,  the  colloid  called  albumen  forms  part 


Alcohol  as  a  Fat-forming'  Food.  99 

of  organic  structure.  Under  the  names  of  gela- 
tine and  chondrine,  a  nitrogenous  colloidal  sub- 
stance fotrns  the  organic  matter  of  the  skeleton, 
of  the  cartilages,  of  the  sheaths  of  muscles,  of  the 
tendons.  The  eye-ball  is  constructed  out  of  a 
series  of  colloidal  tissues.  All  the  membranes 
which  envelope  the  visceral  organs,  and  which 
possess  elasticity,  are  colloidal.  The  outer  cover- 
ing or  skin  is  colloidal,  the  nails  are  the  same. 
Even  in  the  brain  and  nervous  matter  there  is  dis- 
tributed a  colloid.  Thus,  if  we  sum  up  the  various 
parts  of  the  body  we  may  say  that  all  the  active 
masses  of  structure  are  nitrogenous  and  colloidal. 

In  combination  with  this  active  matter  there  are, 
however,  two  other  material  ingredients,  viz.,  water 
and  saline  substance.  Upon  its  combination  with 
water  the  activity  of  the  colloid  depends.  Upon 
the  saline  rests  the  various  kinds  of  combination 
of  the  colloi^  with  the  water.  In  bone  the  gela- 
tine is  combined  with  a  salt,  called  phosphate  of 
lime,  with  carbonate  of  lime,  and  other  salts,  in 
much  larger  proportion  than  itself.  In  fibrine  the 
colloidal  substance  is  nearly  divested  of  saline ; 
but  in  all  parts  these  three  material  compounds 
make  up  the  animal  structures. 

Lying  outside  these  structures  in  the  natural 
state,  but  really  as  an  adventitious  formation,  is 
one  other  animal  product,  viz.,  fat ;  a  substance 
detrimental  to  the  motion  of  the  active  parts  when 
present  in  excess,  but  at  the  same  time  capable  of 
combustion,  and  of  yielding  heat  by  the  process. 

We  have  now  before  us  the  constructive  or 
building  parts  of  the  animal  body.  Excepting  the 


TOO  On  Alcohol. 

water,  the  salts,  and  the  fat,  they  all  contain  nitro- 
gen, and  they  take  their  specific  quality  from  that 
specific  fact.  We  know  that  the  source  of  them  is 
the  vegetable  kingdom,  that  they  are  formed  by 
nature  in  that  kingdom,  are  transferred  from  the 
vegetable  to  the  animal,  are  not  made  by  any  na- 
tural process  within  the  animal,  have  not  yet  been 
made  by  any  artificial  process  known  to  the  che- 
mist, and  can  therefore  only  be  supplied  from  the 
one  natural  supply. 

Alcohol  contains  no  nitrogen,  it  has  none  of  the 
qualities  of  these  structure-building  foods  ;  it  is 
incapable  of  being  transformed  into  any  of  them  ; 
it  is  therefore  not  a  food  in  the  sense  of  its  being 
a  constructive  agent  in  the  building  up  of  the  body. 

In  respect  to  this  view  there  is,  I  believe,  now 
no  difference  of  opinion  amongst  those  who  have 
most  carefully  observed  the  action  of  alcohol. 
There  is,  however,  a  difference  in  relation  to  its 
action  as  a  fat-forming  food.  It  appears  to  be  on 
evidence  that  men  and  'animals  beginning,  while 
in  a  perfect  state  of  health,  to  take  in  excess  cer- 
tain fluids  containing  alcohol  become  fattened. 
Notoriously,  ale  and  beer  fatten ;  and  in  some 
parts  of  the  country  certain  animals — calves,  for 
instance — are  rapidly  fattened  by  the  process  of 
feeding  them  with  a  mixture  of  barley  flour  and 
gin.  But  through  all  these  apparent  evidences 
there  may  run  an  error.  The  fattening  may  not 
be  due  to  the  alcohol  itself,  but  to  the  sugar  ci  the 
starchy  material  that  is  taken  with  it.  As  a  mat- 
ter of  general  experience  on  which  I  have  tried 
to  arrive  at  the  truth  with  as  much  accuracy  as 


Alcohol  as  a  Fat -forming  Food.  101 

can  be  obtained,  I  am  led  to  the  conclusion  that 
pure  spirit  drinkers  among  men,  I  mean  those  who 
do  not  mix  sugar  with  the  spirit,  and  who  dislike 
spirit  which  is  artificially  sweetened,  are  not  fat- 
tened by  the  spirit  they  take.  This  tallies  also 
with  the  observations  on  the  action  of  absolute 
alcohol  on  inferior  animals,  for  they  certainly, 
under  that  influence,  if  they  are  allowed  liberty 
to  move  freely,  do  not  fatten. 

The  question  of  the  effect  of  alcohol  in  fattening 
presents  still  another  difficulty.  Alcohol,  when  it 
is  largely  taken,  unless  the  will  of  the  imbiber  be 
very  powerful,  is  wont  to  induce  desire  for  undue 
sleep,  or  at  least  desire  for  physical  repose.  Under 
such  conditions  there  is  an  interference  with  the 
ordinary  nutritive  processes.  The  wasted  pro- 
ducts of  nutrition  are  imperfectly  eliminated,  the 
respiration  becomes  slower  and  less  effective,  and 
there  is  set  up  a  series  of  changes  leading,  inde- 
pendently of  the  alcohol  as  a  direct  producer  of 
fat,  to  development  and  to  deposit  of  fatty  tissue 
in  the  body.  All  these  circumstances  militate 
against  the  hypothesis  of  the  origin  of  fatty  ma- 
terial direct  from  alcohol,  nor  is  there  any  obvious 
chemical  fact  that  supports  the  hypothesis.  We 
understand  chemically  the  transformation  of 
starchy  matter  into  one  form  of  sugar,  and  we 
infer  that  in  the  animal  body  sugar  is  transmu- 
table  into  fat.  We  know  also  that  we  can  trans- 
mute sugar  into  alcohol,  but  as  yet  we  see  no  way 
back  from  alcohol  into  sugar ;  if  we  did,  the  dif- 
ficulty of  tracing  alcohol  into  fat  would  probably 
be  over. 


IO2  On  Alcohol. 

Physiological  argument  nevertheless  lends  some 
countenance  to  the  view  that  alcohol  may,  by  an 
unknown  process,  be  transferable  into  fat.  It  is 
true  that  some  confirmed  alcoholics  who  do  not 
wax  fat  in  the  ordinary  sense  of  the  term,  that  is 
to  say,  who  do  not  fill  out  with  fat,  from  the  sepa- 
ration of  fatty  matter  in  their  cellular  tissue  out- 
side the  vital  organs,  do,  in  certain  instances, 
undergo  a  process  of  fatty  change  within  their  or- 
ganic structures.  Their  muscles,  including  the 
heart,  become  the  centres  of  the  degeneration 
called  "fatty,"  and  by  the  interposition  of  cells  of 
fat  in  the  minute  muscular  elements,  the  activity 
of  the  fabric  is  destroyed,  sometimes  to  a  fatal 
destruction.  The  same  degenerative  change  may 
extend  also  to  other  organs,  to  the  brain  and  to 
>>uch  active  glands  as  the  liver  and  the  kidney. 

At  first  view  it  occurs  to  the  mind  that  here  is 
evidence  of  effect  upon  cause.  At  the  same  time 
it  is  not  so  clear  that  the  effect  is  direct  from  al- 
cohol ;  for  when  we  proceed  to  examine  into  all 
the  data  that  lie  before  us,  we  discover  such  an 
absence  of  uniformity  in  differing  examples  of  the 
fatty  change  that  we  lose  alcohol  as  the  clue  to 
discovery.  Some  alcoholics  truly  present  the 
fatty  modification  of  tissue,  other  alcoholics  do  not 
present  it,  so  that  alcohol  may  be  in  active  opera- 
tion and  may  neither  be  promoting  the  production 
of  fat  from  other  material  nor  yielding  it.  Lastly, 
the  fatty  change  of  tissue  may  progress,  in  the 
absence  of  alcohol,  in  the  tissues  of  those  who 
altogether  abstain. 

In  conclusion,  therefore,  on  this  one  ooint  of  al« 


Alcohol  as  a  Fat-forming  Food.  103 

cohol,  its  use  as  a  builder  of  the  substantial  parts 
of  the  animal  organism,  I  fear  I  must  give  up  all 
hope  of  affirmative  proof.  It  does  not  certainly 
help  to  build  up  the  active  nitrogenous  struc- 
tures. It  probably  does  not  produce  fatty  mat- 
ter, except  by  an  indirect  and  injurious  interference 
with  the  natural  processes. 

If  alcohol  be  not  a  substance  out  of  which  the 
animal  tissues  are  formed,  may  it  not  be  a  source 
of  energy  of  actual  motion  ;  may  it  not  supply  the 
power  of  doing  work  ?  Alcohol,  we  see,  contains 
two  elements  that  will  burn  in  the  presence  of 
oxygen,  viz.,  carbon  and  hydrogen,  and  although 
by  their  combination  already  with  oxygen  in  the 
alcohol  a  certain  measure  of  their  potential  energy 
is  lost,  they  are  still  capable  of  combining  with 
more  oxygen.  This  is  proved  by  various  experi- 
ments. When  alcohol  is  burned,  that  is  to  say 
when  its  combustible  elements  combine  with  free 
oxygen,  there  results  from  the  chemical  combina- 
tion a  certain  degree  of  heat.  The  heat  produced 
does  not  approach  that  obtained  by  an  equal 
weight  of  hydrogen,  it  is  not  so  great  as  that  pro- 
duced by  an  equal  weight  of  carbon,  but  it  is 
greater  than  that  caused  by  the  combustion  of 
phosphorus,  and  very  much  greater  than  that 
caused  by  the  combustion  of  sulphur. 

The  combustion  thus  spoken  of  is  that  active 
combustion  which  is  excited  when  a  light  is 
brought  into  contact  with  alcohol  so  that  its 
vapor  may  burn.  But  it  is  not  actually  necessary 
that  such  instant  active  combustion  should  be  set 
up.  If  we  distribute  alcohol  over  a  wide  surface 


IO4  On  Alcohol. 

in  the  presence  of  some  chemical  substances  it 
will  then  by  its  combination  with  oxygen  liberate 
a  greater  or  lesser  degree  of  heat.  If  we  saturate 
a  portion  of  paper  with  alcohol,  and  on  that  paper 
pour  a  little  of  the  finely-divided  powder  called 
platinum  black,  we  at  once  get  evidence  of  heat 
which  may  be  so  active  that  perfect  combustion 
may  ensue.  In  this  instance  the  alcohol  is  trans- 
formed, as  in  burning,  in  great  part,  nay  it  may  be 
altogether,  into  carbonic  acid  and  water,  which 
means  the  completed  combustion.  If  in  place  of 
absolute  alcohol,  in  this  experiment,  we  were  to 
use  alcohol  diluted  with  water,  then  instead  of 
obtaining  the  active  combination  and  combustion 
we  should  get  a  slower  oxidation  with  the  pro- 
duction of  substances  to  which  attention  has 
already  been  directed,  viz.,  aldehyde,  acetic  acid, 
and  volatile  acetic  ether. 

DISPOSAL  OF  ALCOHOL  IN  THE  ORGANISM. 

We  are  brought  now  to  one  of  the  most  im- 
portant parts  of  our  study.  We  see  that,  under 
favoring  conditions,  alcohol  will  oxidise  in  the 
presence  of  the  air.  We  see  that  it  will  oxidise  in 
two  ways — actively,  with  the  production  of  much 
heat  and  with  the  formation  of  carbon^  acid  and 
water ;  passively,  with  the  production  of  alde- 
hyde and  acetic  acid. 

In  the  human  body  do  any  similar  changes  take 
place  ?  Throughout  the  whole  of  the  vast  sheet 
of  the  minute  circulation  there  is  ever  in  progress, 
during  life,  a  process  of  slow  oxidation  of  carbon 


Disposal  of  Alcohol  in  tJie  Organism.        105 

and  hydrogen,  by  which  heat  is  produced,  and 
carbonic  acid  and  water  are  produced.  The  heat 
is  proved  by  the  animal  warmth  which  is  ever 
present  in  our  bodies  while  we  live ;  the  carbonic 
acid  and  water,  as  products,  are  proved  by  their 
continued  presence  in  the  secretions  from  the 
lungs,  skin,  and  other  organs. 

Alcohol,  we  have  seen,  is  carried  by  the  blood 
into  this  minute  circulation.  Is  it  possible  it  can 
pass  through  that  ordeal  and  undergo  no  chemical 
change  ?  If  it  does  undergo  any  change,  what  is 
its  nature  ?  These  questions  have  occupied  the 
attention  of  many  gifted  minds ;  but  they  are  not 
yet  solved.  Let  me  endeavor  to  put  the  position 
in  which  they  stand  plainly  before  you. 

The  earlier  physiologists  of  this  century  came, 
naturally  enough,  to  the  conclusion  that  the 
alcohol  taken  into  the  body  is  consumed  there 
with  the  evolution  of  heat.  A  certain  develop- 
ment of  heat  in  the  superficies  of  the  body,  and  a 
certain  sensation  of  glow  which  follows  upon  the 
imbibition  of  spirit  lent  countenance  to  this  sus- 
picion. But  in  course  of  time,  independently  of 
any  knowledge  of  the  effect  produced  by  alcohol 
in  the  minute  circulation  of  the  blood,  it  began  to 
be  doubted  whether  alcohol  was  disposed  of  in 
the  organism  by  its  combustion.  Some  observers 
had  noticed,  in  conducting  the  examination  of  the 
body  after  death  from  excess  of  alcohol,  that  the 
odor  of  the  substance  was  present  in  the  tissues, 
especially  in  the  nervous  tissue,  and  it  was  doubt- 
ed whether  the  alcohol  might  not  under  some 
circumstances  remain  in  the  organism  without 


io6  On  Alcohol. 

undergoing  any  change  at  all.  In  1 860  two  emi- 
nent  Frenchmen — Lallemand  and  Perrin,  assisted 
by  Duroy,  published  a  prize  essay  on  alcohol,  in 
which  this  view  was  maintained,  or,  as  the  authors 
would  probably  say,  was  originated  ;  for  in  truth 
they  were  the  first  to  state  the  view  on  direct 
scientific  evidence.  From  the  result  of  many  ex- 
periments, they  came  to  the  conclusion  that 
alcohol  taken  into  the  living  body  accumulates 
in  the  tissues,  especially  in  the  liver  and  in  the 
brain,  and  that  it  is  eliminated  by  the  fluid  secre- 
tions, notably  by  the  renal  secretion,  as  alcohol. 
They  sought  in  the  different  tissues  for  evidence 
of  the  Secondary  products  of  the  oxidation  of 
alcohol,  for  aldehyde,  acetal,  acetic  acid,  and  they 
found  none  of  those  products,  except  some  acetic 
acid  in  the  stomach,  which  acid  they  concluded 
was  formed  from  the  alcohol  received  directly 
into  the  stomach,  and  from  the  action  exerted 
upon  it  there  by  the  gastric  juice.  The  experi- 
ments carried  on  by  these  inquirers  were  so 
numerous  and  careful,  and  the  results  they  arriv- 
ed at  were  so  definitely  stated,  that  their  labors 
were  for  a  season  accepted  as  conclusive  by  many 
men  of  science,  and  by  the  majority  of  the  public. 
It  was  ascertained  by  other  experimentalists  that 
alcohol  is  eliminated  by  the  system  in  the  direct 
way,  as  alcohol,  and  the  question  of  elimination 
rested  as  if  it  had  been  solved. 

The  interval  of  credence  in  these  assertions  was 
not  very  prolonged.  An  English  physician  soon 
commenced  to  cross  a  lance  with  his  learned 
French  peers,  and  to  point  out  certain  distinct 


Disposal  of  Alcohol  in  the  Organism.       107 

errors  in  their  results.  I  have  no  doubt  many  of 
you  know,  before  I  mention  his  name,  that  he  to 
whom  I  refer  was  the  physician  who  last  year  lost 
his  life  from  the  performance  of  his  professional 
duties-  -the  late  Dr.  Anstie.  Respecting  this  ob- 
server, whose  friendship  I  owned  for  many  years, 
it  is  meet  for  me  to  pay  this  public  tribute  of  re- 
spect ;  that  no  man  I  ever  knew  combined  with 
vigor  of  mind,  more  incomparable  industry  and 
courage,  or  a  more  honorable  regard  for  scientific 
truth  and  honesty.  The  subject  we  are  now  con- 
sidering has  lost  no  investigator  more  ably  learned 
for  the  work  that  still  remains  to  be  done. 

From  Dr.  Anstie  came  the  earliest  expressions 
of  doubt  relative  to  this  hypothesis  of  what  is 
called  the  direct  elimination  of  alcohol  by  the 
secretions,  and  from  him  have  come  the  latest 
objections.  His  arguments  have  been  sustained 
abroad  by  Schulinus,  and,  in  this  country,  by  Drs. 
Thudichum  and  Dupre,  whose  work  on  wine  will, 
even  in  another  century,  be  more  highly  prized,  if 
that  be  possible,  than  it  is  now.  The  sum  and 
substance  of  the  labors  of  these  observers  is  stated 
in  a  few  words.  They  prove  that  while  it  is  true 
that,  under  certain  circumstances,  alcohol  taken 
into  the  body  will  pass  off  in  the  secretions  un- 
changed, the  quantity  so  eliminated  is  the  merest 
fraction  of  what  has  been  injected,  and  that  there 
must  be  some  other  means  by  which  the  spirit  is 
disposed  of  in  the  organism.  In  a  lecture  I  de- 
livered on  this  subject  in  the  year  1869,  I  ventured 
to  suggest,  in  commenting  upon  a  series  of  Dr.  Thu- 
dichum's  remarkable  researches,  that  perhaps  one 


io8  On  Alcohol. 

element  of  research  was  wanting  to  prove  conclu- 
sively the  fallacy  of  the  direct  elimination  hypo- 
thesis. I  thought  that  sufficient  time  had  not 
been  allowed  between  the  administration  of  the 
spirit  and  the  final  determination  made  for  it  in  the 
excreted  fluids.  It  was  not,  I  argued,  shown  how 
much  spirit  the  tissues  would  hold  unchanged. 
The  objection  was  sound,  but  it  has  been  removed 
by  more  recent  experiment. 

In  the  last  research  conducted  by  Anstie,  in 
which  he  was  assisted  by  Dupre,  the  results  of  the 
experiments  were  unmistakable  in  their  bearing  on 
the  points  now  under  our  consideration.  The  his- 
tory of  these  labors  is  recorded  in  full  in  the  last 
paper  written  by  Dr.  Anstie,  and  published  in  the 
journal  called  the  Practitioner,  for  July,  1874. 

The  test  that  had  been  commonly  employed  for 
determining  the  presence  of  alcohol  in  the  fluid 
suspected  of  containing  it,  was  the  color  test.  A 
solution  is  made  consisting  of  bichromate  of  potas- 
sa,  with  diluted  sulphuric  acid.  When  to  this 
solution  alcohol  is  added,  there  is  a  change  of 
color  from  the  brownish  red  to  green ;  owing  to 
the  reduction  of  the  chromic  acid  to  the  green 
oxide  of  the  base  chromium.  By  marking  the 
difference  of  color  produced  a  scale  can  be  adopted 
which  will  show  the  extent  of  the  reduction,  and 
thereby  the  amount  of  the  spirit  that  has  caused 
the  change.  This  process  was  improved  by  Dr. 
Dupre.  He  distilled  the  fluid  in  which  alcohol 
was  believed  to  be  present,  and  then,  after  treating 
the  distillate  with  the  bichromate  and  sulphuric 
acid  solution,  he  tested  with  a  standard  solution 


Disposal  of  Alcohol  in  the  Organism.       109 

of  soda  for  the  amount  of  acetic  acid  which  would 
be  produced  by  the  oxidation  of  alcohol  were  that 
fluid  present. 

This  modification  of  test  was  and  is  a  very  con- 
siderable advance,  since  it  enabled  the  observers 
to  extend  their  determinations  with  greater  accu- 
racy of  detail.  In  the  research  they  conducted 
with  it  two  facts  of  singular  interest  were  elicited. 
The  first  fact  was  discovered  by  Dr.  Dupre.  It  is 
that  from  the  secretions  of  persons  who  do  not 
£rink  alcohol  at  all  a  fluid  can  be  distilled  which 
affects  the  chromic  test  as  if  alcohol  were  actually 
present  in  the  secreted  fluids,  and  that  this  hith- 
erto unsuspected  product  is  oxidised  into  an  acid 
so  like  acetic  acid  it  cannot  be  distinguished  from 
it,  and  is  apparently  identical  with  it.  To  be  plain, 
Dr.  Dupre's  discovery  suggests  that  no  man  can 
be,  in  strict  scientific  sense,  a  non-alcoholic,  inas- 
much as,  "  will  he  nill  he,"  he  brews  in  his  own 
economy  a  "wee  drap."  It  is  an  innocent  brew 
certainly,  but  it  is  brewed,  and  the  most  ardent 
abstainer  must  excuse  it.  "  Argal,  he  that  is  not 
guilty  of  his  own  death  shorteneth  not  his  own  life." 
The  fault,  if  it  be  one,  rests  with  nature,  who,  ac- 
cording to  our  poor  estimates,  is  no  more  faultless 
than  the  rest  of  her  sex. 

The  second  fact,  which  came  chiefly  from  the 
labors  of  Dr.  Anstie,  is  that  from  animals  under 
alcohol,  not  one  of  the  secretions,  not  all  the  secre- 
tions combined,  yield  any  more  than  a  fractional 
amount  of  the  alcohol  that  has  been  administered. 
The  experiments  were  by  necessity  made  on  the 
inferior  animals,  but  they  supplied  none  the  less 


no  On  Alcohol. 

conclusively  the  fact  stated.  It  was  proved  that 
an  animal,  a  terrier  dog,  weighing  tea  pounds, 
could  take  with  comparative  impunitynearly  2000 
grains  of  absolute  alcohol  in  ten  days,  and  that  on 
the  last  day  of  this  regimen  he  only  eliminated  by 
all  the  channels  of  elimination  1.13  grains  of  alco- 
hol. This  fact  was  of  itself  sufficiently  remarkable, 
but  another  still  more  important  remains  to  be 
told.  In  completion  of  his  research,  when  an  ani- 
mal had  been  treated  with  alcohol,  as  above  de- 
scribed, Anstie  killed  it,  instantly  and  painlessly, 
two  hours  after  it  had  received  the  last  quantity — • 
95  grains — of  spirit.  Then  the  whole  body,  in- 
cluding every  fragment  of  tissue  with  all  the  fluid 
and  solid  contents,  was  subjected  to  analysis,  with 
the  result  of  discovering  only  23.66  grains  of  spirit. 
We  are  driven  by  the  evidence  now  before  us  to 
the  certain  conclusion  that  in  the  animal  body 
alcohol  is  decomposed;  that  is  to  say,  a  certain 
portion  of  it  (and  if  a  certain  portion  why  not  the 
whole-?)  is  transmutable  into  new  compounds. 
The  inference  that  might  be  drawn  is  fair  enough 
that  the  alcohol  is  lost  by  being  burned  in  the 
body.  It  is  lost  in  the  body,  and  out  of  the  body 
it  will  burn.  If  it  will  burn  in  the  organism  it  will 
supply  force,  for  it  enters  as  the  bearer  of  so  much 
potential  energy.  In  combining  with  oxygen  is 
there  then  a  development  of  force  or  heat  to  the 
extent  that  would  be  developed  in  the  combustion 
of  the  same  quantity  in  the  lamp,  or  from  the  dis- 
tribution of  it  over  the  platinum  black  ?  At  the 
same  time,  and  in  corroboration,  is  the  product  of 
its  combustion,  carbonic  acid,  to  be  discovered  in 


Effect  on  Animal  Temperature.  in 

the  excretions  ?  If  there  be  heat,  and  if  there  be 
product  of  carbon  consumed  in  oxygen,  then  alco- 
hol must  rank  as  a  heat-forming  food. 

DOES  ALCOHOL  CAUSE  INCREASE   OF  ANIMAL 
HEAT? 

In  putting  before  you  this  inquiry,  I  am  pre- 
pared to  answer  it  by  direct  knowledge  gained 
from  individual  experiment.  In  the  course  of 
some  researches  I  had  to  make  for  reports  ren- 
dered to  the  British  Association  for  the  Advance- 
ment of  Science,  it  became  part  of  my  duty  to  as- 
certain what  effect  certain  chemical  agents  exert 
over  the  animal  temperature.  Amongst  these 
a<ffents  was  alcohol. 

At  the  time  when  my  researches  commenced — 
viz.,  in  the  year  1864,  there  was  nothing  definitely 
known  on  the  subject.  The  thermometer  was  not 
then  in  such  general  use  as  it  is  now,  and  it  had 
not  been  applied,  as  far  as  I  know,  to  this  particu- 
lar determination.  Generally,  however,  it  had 
been  assumed  by  the  majority  of  persons  that 
alcohol  warms  the  body,  and  to  "  take  just  a  drop 
to  keep  out  the  cold  "  had  been  the  practice  which 
the  experience  of  ages  seemed  to  justify.  It  is 
fair,  at  the  same  time,  to  say  that  Dr.  Lees,  and 
some  other  far-seeing  observers,  had  for  many 
years  held  and  asserted  a  different  view.  They 
had  not  entered  into  minuteness  of  experimental 
detail,  but  they  had  observed  from  the  effects  of 
alcohol  on  those  who  had  been  exposed  to  cold  in 
the  extreme  North  and  in  other  regions  of  ice  and 
snow,  that  the  drinkers  did  not  live  on  like  other 


112  On  Alcohol. 

men.  Thus,  in  so  f:ir  as  I  had  what  is  called 
experience  to  guide  me,  1  found  conflict  of 
opinion.  It  was  not  my  business,  however,  to 
accept  guidance  of  this  kind,  but  to  appeal  to  the 
Duly  safe  guide,  the  direct  interrogation  of  nature 
by  experiment. 

It  were  impossible  for  me  to  recount  the  details 
of  the  long  research, — extending,  with  intervals  of 
rest,  over  three  years, — which  was  conducted  in 
my  laboratory,  to  determine  the  influence  of  alco- 
hol on  the  animal  temperature.  The  effects  were 
observed  on  warm-blooded  animals  of  different 
kinds,  including  birds ;  on  the  human  subject  in 
health,  and  on  the  same  snbject  under  alcoholic 
disease.  Similar  experiments  were  made  in  diffc^- 
ent  external  temperatures  of  the  air,  ranging  from 
summer  heat  to  ten  degrees  below  freezing  point. 
The  whole  were  carried  on  from  experiment  to 
experiment,  without  regard  either  to  comparison 
or  result  until  the  general  character  of  result 
began  to  proclaim  that  a  rule  existed  which  could 
rarely  be  considered  exceptional.  The  facts  ob- 
tained I  may  epitomise  as  follows  : 

The  progressive  stages  of  change  of  animal 
function  from  alcohol  are  four  in  number.  The 
first  is  a  stage  of  excitement  when  there  exists  that 
relaxation  and  injection  of  the  blood-vessels  of  the 
minute  circulation  with  which  we  have  become 
conversant.  The  second  is  the  stage  of  excite- 
ment with  some  muscular  inability  and  deficient 
automatic  control.  The  third  is  a  stage  of  ram- 
bling, incoherent,  emotional  excitement,  with  loss  of 
voluntary  muscular  power,  and  ending  in  helpless 


Effect  on  Animal  Temperature.  113 

unconsciousness.  The  fourth  and  final  stage  is 
that  in  which  the  heart  itself  begins  to  fail,  and  in 
which  death,  in  extreme  instances  of  intoxication, 
closes  the  scene.  These  stages  are  developed 
in  till  the  warm-blooded  animals,  and  the  changes 
of  temperature  throughout  the  whole  are  re- 
latively the  same. 

In  the  first  stage  the  external  temperature  of 
the  body  is  raised.  In  birds — pigeons — the  rise 
may  amount  to  a  full  degree,  on  Fahrenheit's 
scale ;  in  mammals  it  rarely  exceeds  half  a  degree. 
In  man  it  may  rise  to  half  a  degree,  and  in  the 
confirmed  inebriate,  in  whom  the  cutaneous  vessels 
are  readily  engorged,  I  have  seen  it  run  up  to  a 
degree  and  a  half.  In  this  stage  the  effect  on  the 
extremities  of  the  nerves  is  that  of  a  warm  glow, 
like  what  is  experienced  during  the  reaction  from 
cold. 

The  heat  felt  in  this  stage  might  be  considered 
as  due  to  the  combustion  of  the  alcohol :  it  is  not 
so ;  it  is  in  truth  a  process  of  cooling.  It  is  from 
the  unfolding  of  the  larger  sheet  of  the  warm 
blood  and  from  the  quicker  radiation  of  heat  from 
that  larger  surface.  During  this  stage,  which  is 
comparatively  brief,  the  internal  temperature  is 
declining;  the  expired  air  from  the  lungs  is  indi- 
cating, not  an  increase,  but  the  first  period  of  re- 
duction in  the  amount  of  carbonic  acid,  and  the 
reddened  surface  of  the  body  is  so  reduced  in 
tonicity  that  cold  applied  to  it  increases  the  suf- 
fusion. It  is  this  most  deceptive  stage  that  led  the 
older  observers  into  the  error  that  alcohol  warms 
the  body 


H4  On  Alcohol. 


down  to  its  natural  standard,  and  then  declines 
below  what  is  natural.  The  fall  is  not  consider- 
able. In  birds  it  reaches  from  one  and  a  half  to 
two  degrees.  In  other  animals,  dogs  and  guinea 
pigs,  it  rarely  exceeds  one  degree ;  in  man  it  k 
confined  to  three-fourths  of  a  degree.  In  a  roorr. 
heated  to  65°  or  70°  the  decrease  of  animal  tem- 
perature may  not  actually  be  perceived  ;  but  it  is 
quickly  detected  if  the  person  in  whom  it  is  pre- 
sent pass  into  a  colder  atmosphere,  and  it  lasts, 
even  when  the  further  supply  of  alcohol  is  cut  off, 
for  a  long  period — viz.,  from  two  and  a  half  to 
three  hours.  It  is  much  prolonged  by  absence  of 
food. 

During  the  third  degree  the  fall  of  temperature 
rapidly  increases,  and  as  the  fourth  stage  is  ap- 
proached it  reaches  a  decline  that  becomes  actually 
dangerous.  In  birds  the  reduction  may  be  five 
degrees  and  a  half,  and  in  the  other  animals  three. 
In  man  it  is  often  from  two  and  a  half  to  three  de- 
grees. There  is  always  during  this  stage  a  pro- 
found sleep  or  coma,  and  while  this  lasts  the  tem- 
perature continues  reduced. 

It  is  here  worthy  of  incidental  notice  that,  as  a 
rule,  the  sleep  of  apoplexy  and  the  sleep  of  drunk- 
enness may  be  distinguished  by  a  marked  differ- 
ence in  the  animal  temperature.  In  apoplexy  the 
temperature  of  the  body  is  above,  in  drunken- 
ness below,  the  natural  standard  of  98^'  of  Fahren- 
heit's scale. 

Under  favorable  circumstances  a  long  period  is 
required  before  the  body  recovers  its  natural 


Effect  on  Animal  Temperature.  115 

warmth  after  such  reduction  of  heat  as  follows  the 
extreme  stage  of  alcoholic  intoxication.  With  the 
first  conscious  movements  of  recovery  there  is  a 
faint  rise,  but  such  is  the  depression  that  these  very 
movements  exhaust  and  lead  to  a  further  reduction. 
I  have  known  as  long  a  period  as  three  days 
required,  in  man,  to  bring  back  a  steady  natural 
return  of  the  full  animal  warmth. 

Through  every  stage,  then,  of  the  action  of  al- 
cohol— barring  that  first  stage  of  excitement — I 
found  a  reduction  of  animal  heat  to  be  the  special 
action  of  the  poison.  To  make  the  research  more 
perfectly  reliable,  I  combined  the  action  of  alcohol 
with  that  of  cold.  A  warm-blooded  animal,  in- 
sensibly asleep  in  the  third  stage  of  alcoholic  nar- 
cotism, was  placed  in  a  chamber,  the  air  of  which 
was  reduced  in  temperature  to  ten  degrees  below 
freezing  point,  together  with  another  similar  ani- 
mal which  had  received  no  alcohol.  I  found  that 
both  sleep  under  these  circumstances,  but  the 
alcoholic  sleeps  to  die ;  the  other  sleeps  more 
deeply  than  is  natural,  and  lives  so  long  as  the 
store  of  food  it  is  charged  with  continues  to  sup- 
port life.  Within  this  bound  it  awakes,  in  a 
warmer  air,  uninjured,  though  the  degree  of  cold 
be  carried  even  lower,  and  be  continued  for  a 
much  longer  time. 

One  more  portion  of  evidence  completes  the  re- 
search on  the  influence  of  alcohol  on  the  animal 
temperature.  As  there  is  a  decrease  of  tempera- 
ture from  alcohol,  so  there  is  proportionately  a  de- 
crease in  the  amount  of  the  natural  products  of 
the  combustion  of  the  body.  The  quantity  of 


Ii6  On  Alcohol. 

carbonic  acid  exhaled  by  the  oreath  is  propor- 
tionately diminished  with  the  decline  of  the  animal 
heat.  In  the  extreme  stage  of  alcoholic  insensi- 
bility,—  short  of  the  actually  dangerous, — the 
amount  of  carbonic  acid  exhaled  by  the  animal 
and  given  off  into  the  chamber  I  constructed  for 
the  purposes  of  observation  was  reduced  to  one- 
third  below  the  natural  standard.  On  the  human 
subject  in  this  stage  of  insensibility  the  quantity 
of  carbonic  acid  exhaled  has  not  been  measured, 
but  in  the  earlier  stage  of  alcoholic  derangement 
of  function  the  exhaled  gas  was  measured  with 
much  care  by  a  very  earnest  worker,  whose  recent 
death  we  have  also  to  deplore  —  Dr.  Edward 
Smith.  In  these  early  stages  Dr.  Smith  found 
that  the  amount  of  carbonic  acid  was  reduced  in 
man,  as  I  have  found  it  in  the  lower  animals,  so 
that  the  fact  of  the  general  reduction  may  be  con- 
sidered as  established  beyond  disputation. 

We  are  landed  then  at  last  on  this  basis  of  know- 
ledge. An  agent  that  will  burn  and  give  forth 
heat  and  product  of  combustion  outside  the  body, 
and  which  is  obviously  decomposed  within  the 
body,  reduces  the  animal  temperature,  and  pre- 
vents the  yield  of  so  much  product  of  combustion 
as  is  actually  natural  to  the  organic  life. 

What  is  the  inference  ?  The  inference  is  that 
the  alcohol  is  not  burned  after  the  manner  of  a 
food  which  supports  animal  combustion  ;  but  that 
it  is  decomposed  into  secondary  products,  by  oxida- 
tion, at  the  expense  of  the  oxygen  which  ou£  ht  to 
be  applied  for  the  natural  heating  of  the  body. 

For  some  time  to  come  the  physiological  world 


Effect  on  Animal  Temperature.  117 

will  be  studiously  intent  on  the  discovery  of  the 
mode  by  which  alcohol  is  removed  from  the  or- 
ganism. It  is  a  subject  on  which  I  shall  one  day 
be  able  to  speak,  I  hope,  with  some  degree  of  ex- 
perimental certainty,  but  on  which  at  this  moment 
I  am  not  prepared  to  offer  more  than  an  indication 
of  the  probable  course  of  research.  I  may  ven- 
ture to  add,  in  advance,  two  or  three  suggestions 
to  which  my  researches,  as  far  as  they  go,  point- 
Firstly,  I  believe  there  is  a  certain  determinable 
degree  of  saturation  of  the  blood  with  alcohol, 
within  which  degree  all  the  alcohol  is  disposed  of 
by  its  decomposition.  Beyond  that  degree  the 
oxidation  is  arrested,  and  then  there  is  an  accumu- 
lation of  alcohol,  with  voidance  of  it,  in  the  un- 
changed state,  in  the  secretions. 

Secondly,  the  change  or  decomposition  of  the 
alcohol  in  its  course  through  the  minute  circula- 
tion, in  which  it  is  transformed,  is  not  into  car- 
bonic acid  and  water,  as  though  it  were  burned, 
but  into  a  new  soluble,  chemical  substance,  proba- 
bly aldehyde,  which  returns  by  the  veins  into  the 
great  channels  of  the  circulation. 

Thirdly,  I  think  I  have  made  out  that  there 
is  an  outlet  for  the  alcohol,  or  for  the  fluid  pro- 
duct of  its  decomposition,  into  the  alimentary  canal, 
through  the  secretion  of  the  liver.  Thrown  into 
the  canal,  it  is,  I  believe,  subjected  there  to  further 
oxidation,  is  in  fact  oxidised  by  a  process  of  fer- 
mentation attended  with  the  active  development 
of  gaseous  substances.  From  this  surface  the  oxi- 
dised product  is  in  turn  re-absorbed  in  great  parl 
and  carried  into  the  circulation,  and  is  disposed  of 


Il8  On  Alcohol. 

by  combination  with  bases  or  by  further  oxida. 
tion. 

Here,  however,  I  leave  the  theoretical  point  to 
revert  to  the  practical,  and  the  practical  is  this  ; 
that  alcohol  cannot  by  any  ingenuity  of  excuse  for 
it,  be  classified  amongst  the  foods  of  man.  It  neither 
supplies  matter  for  construction  nor  heat.  On  the 
contrary,  it  injures  construction  and  it  reduces 
temperature. 

EFFECT    OF    MUSCULAR   POWER. 

Behind  the  question  of  the  effect  of  alcoho*  upon 
the  animal  temperature  was  another  subject  for  in- 
quiry. It  was  fair  to  ask  whether,  if  heat  were  not 
produced  by  the  spirit,  some  additional  stimulus 
might  be  communicated  by  it  to  the  muscular  fibre. 
There  is  nothing  in  what  we  see  relating  to  the 
action  of  alcohol  in  man  that  would  lead  us  to 
suppose  it  capable  of  giving  an  increased  muscular 
power,  and  it  is  certain  that  animals  subjected  even 
for  short  periods  of  time  to  its  influence  lose  theii 
power  for  work  in  a  marked  degree.  Indeed,  if 
we  were  to  treat  our  domestic  animals  with  this 
agent  in  the  same  manner  that  we  treat  ourselves, 
we  should  soon  have  none  that  were  tamable, 
none  that  were  workable,  and  none  that  were 
edible.  I  thought  it,  nevertheless,  worth  the  in- 
quiry whether  at  any  stage  of  the  alcoholic  excite- 
ment living  muscle  could  be  induced  to  show  an 
extra  amount  of  power.  I  therefore  submitted 
muscle  to  this  test.  I  gently  weighted  the  hinder 
-limb  of  a  frog  until  the  power  of  contraction  was 
just  overcome  then  by  a  measured  electrical  cur- 


ect  on  Muscular  Power.  119 


rent  I  stimulated  the  muscle  to  extra  contraction, 
and  determined  the  increase  of  weight  that  could 
thus  be  lifted.  This  decided  upon  in  the  healthy 
animal,  the  trial  was  repeated  some  days  later  on 
the  same  animal  after  it,  had  received  alcohol  in 
sufficient  quantities  to  induce  the  various  stages  of 
alcoholic  modification  of  function.  The  result  was 
that  through  every  stage  the  response  to  the  elec- 
trical current  was  enfeebled,  and  so  soon  as  narco- 
tism was  developed  by  the  spirit,  it  was  so  en- 
feebled that  less  than  half  the  weight  that  could  be 
lifted  in  the  previous  trial,  by  the  natural  effort  of 
the  animal,  could  not  now  be  raised  even  under  the 
electrical  excitation. 

In  man  and  in  animals,  during  the  period  be- 
tween the  first  and  third  stages  of  alcoholic  distur- 
bance, there  is  often  muscular  excitement,  which 
passes  for  increased  muscular  power.  The  muscles 
are  then  truly  more  rapidly  stimulated  into  motion 
by  the  nervous  tumult,  but  the  muscular  power  is 
actually  enfeebled. 

HYGIENIC    LESSONS. 

The  facts  I  have  endeavored  to  bring  forward 
in  this  as  well  as  in  the  last  lecture  will  suggest  to 
the  mind  many  thoughts  bearing  upon  the  health 
of  individuals  and  communities,  in  so  far  as  health 
is  affected  by  the  potent  agent,  alcohol.  I  need 
hardly,  indeed,  presume  to  offer  any  suggestions, 
but  one  or  two  of  a  specially  practical  and  every- 
day character  may  be  ventured. 

I  am  bound  to  intimate  that  the  popular  plan  of 
administering  alcohol  for  the  purpose  of  sustaining 


I2O  On  Alcohol. 

the  animal  warmth  is  an  entire  and  dangerous 
error,  and  that  when  it  is  brought  into  practice 
during  extremely  cold  weather  it  is  calculated  to 
lead  even  to  fatal  consequences,  from  the  readiness 
with  which  it  permits  the  blood  to  become  con- 
gested in  the  vital  organs.  I  cannot  too  forcibly 
impress  the  fact  that  cold  and  alcohol  act,  physio- 
logically, in  the  same  manner,  and  that,  combined 
in  action,  every  danger  resulting  from  either  agent 
is  doubled. 

Whenever  we  see  a  person  disposed  to  meet  the 
effects  of  cold  by  strong  drink  it  is  our  duty  to  en- 
deavor to  check  that  effort,  and  whenever  we  see 
an  unfortunate  person  under  the  influence  of  alco- 
hol it  is  our  duty  to  suggest  warmth  as  the  best 
means  for  his  recovery.  These  facts  prompt  many 
other  useful  ideas  of  detail,  in  our  common  life. 
If,  for  instance,  our  police  were  taught  the  simple 
art  of  taking  the  animal  temperature  of  persons 
they  have  removed  from  the  streets  in  a  state  of 
insensibility,  the  results  would  be  most  beneficial. 
The  operation  is  one  that  hundreds  of  nurses  now 
carry  out  daily,  and  applied  by  our  police-officers, 
at  their  stations,  it  would  enable  them  not  only  to 
suspect  the  difference  between  a  man  in  an  apo- 
plectic fit  and  a  man  intoxicated,  but  would  sug- 
gest naturally  the  instant  abolition  of  the  practice 
of  thrusting  the  really  intoxicated  into  a  cold  and 
damp  cell,  which  to  such  a  one  is  actually  an  ante- 
room to  the  grave.* 


*  Since  the  delivery  of  this  lecture  I  am  informed  that  in  th« 
London  Metropolitan  District  the  cells  in  which  the  intoxicated 


Hygienic  Lessons.  1 21 

Once  more  :  I  would  earnestly  impress  that  the 
systematic  administration  of  alcohol  for  the  pur- 
pose of  giving  and  sustaining  strength  is  an  entire 
delusion.  I  am  not  going  to  say  that  occasions  do 
not  arise  when  an  enfeebled  or  fainting  heart  is 
temporarily  relieved  by  the  relaxation  of  the 
vessels  which  alcohol,  on  its  diffusion  through  the 
blood,  induces  ;  but  that  this  spirit  gives  any  per- 
sistent increase  of  power  by  which  men  are  en- 
abled to  perform  more  sustained  work  is  a  mistake 
as  serious  as  it  is  universal. 

Again,  the  belief  that  alcohol  may  be  used  with 
advantage  to  fatten  the  body  is,  when  it  is  acted 
upon,  fraught  with  danger.  For  if  we  could  suc- 
cessfully fatten  the  body  we  should  but  destroy  it 
the  more  swiftly  and  surely  ;  and  as  the  fattening 
which  follows  the  use  of  alcohol  is  not  confined  to 
the  external  development  of  fat  but  extends  to  a 
degeneration  through  the  minute  structures  of  the 
vital  organs,  including  the  heart  itself,  the  danger 
is  painfully  apparent. 

In  conclusion,  whatever  good  can  come  from 
alcohol,  or  whatever  evil,  is  all  included  in  that 
primary  physiological  and  luxurious  action  of  the 
agent  upon  the  nervous  supply  of  the  circulation 
to  which  I  have  endeavored  so  earnestly  to  direct 
your  attention.  If  it  be  really  a  luxury  for  the 
heart  to  be  lifted  up  by  alcohol ;  for  the  blood  to 
course  more  swiftly  through  the  brain ;  for  the 
thoughts  to  flow  more  vehemently  ;  for  words  to 


Me  received  are  not  open  to  the  objections  named.    I  am  g'ad 
to  be  able  tc  make  this  correction; 


122  On  Alcohol. 

come  more  fluently ;  for  emotions  to  rise  ecstati- 
cally, and  for  life  to  rush  on  beyond  the  pace  set 
by  nature  ;  then  those  who  enjoy  the  luxury  must 
enjoy  it, — with  the  consequences. 


LECTURE  V. 

THE  SECONDARY  ACTION  OF  ALCOHOL  ON  THE 
ANIMAL  FUNCTIONS,  AND  'ON  THE  PHYSICAL  DE- 
TERIORATIONS OF  STRUCTURE  INCIDENT  TO  ITS 
EXCESSIVE  USE. 

IT  is  my  business  in  this  course  of  lectures  to 
treat  upon  the  specific  action  of  absolute  alcohol. 
I  have  therefore  specially  avoided  all  reference  to 
the  spirituous  drinks  of  which  it  forms  a  part.  As 
a  rule  in  every  form  of  strong  drink  the  source  of 
the  action  of  it,  for  good  or  for  evil,  is  the  spirit  it 
contains,  and  the  influence  of  the  drink  is  potent 
according  to  the  amount  of  that  spirit  present  in 
it.  To  put  the  matter  simply,  if  all  the  liquors 
sold  under  various  names — wine,  brandy,  gin,  rum, 
whisky,  ale,  stout,  perry,  cider, — were  divested  of 
their  alcoholic  spirit,  they  would  contain  compara- 
tively little  of  anything  that  would  affect  those 
who  partook  of  them. 

DELETERIOUS  ADDITIONS    TO  ALCOHOLIC   DRINKS. 

As  I  am,  however,  about  to  speak  of  the  dele- 
terious action  of  alcohol,  it  is  fair  I  should  admit 
that  some  bad  effects  do  spring  from  so-called  wine 
and  kindred  drinks  independently  of  the  pure 
spirit  they  contain.  Something  less  of  evil  than 
now  obtains  would  be  secured  if  none  but  natural 
wines  and  ales  were  taken  by  the  people.  To 

»3 


124  On  Alcohol. 

return  ti  the  times  before  brantwein  was  distilled 
and  to  have  no  intoxicating  beverages  save  pure 
wine  and  round  ale,  were  doubtless  an  improve- 
ment on  the  state  of  things  which  now  exists ;  for, 
in  truth,  at  the  present  time  the  characters  of  pure 
ethylic  wine  are  hardly  known.  A  bcrA-fide  wine 
derived  from  th^  fermentation  of  the  grape  purely, 
cannot  contain  i  tore  than  seventeen  per  cent,  of 
alcohol,  yet  our  staple  wines,  by  an  artificial  pro- 
cess of  fortifying  i  nd  brandying,  which  mears  the 
adding  of  spirit,  arc  brought  up  in  sherries  to 
twenty,  and  in  ports  to  even  twenty-live  per  cent. 
Some  wines  and  spirits  are  believed  to  be  charged 
with  amylic  alcohol.  Other  wines  are  charged 
with  foreign  volatile  substances  to  impart  what  IP 
called  bouquet,  and  still  other  so-called  wines — \ 
allude  specially  to  the  effervescing  liquids  sold 
under  that  name — are  actually  often  undergoing 
the  fermenting  process  at  the  time  they  are  im- 
bibed, and  thus  are  invited  to  complete  their  fer- 
mentation  in  that  sensitive  bottle,  the  human 
stomach. 

If  the  subject  were  specially  looked  into,  a  verv 
important  chapter  of  facts  might  be  collected 
bearing  upon  the  injurious  effects  of  these  addi- 
tions to  ales,  wines,  and  spirits.  I  have  noticea 
the  evils  that  follow  upon  the  administration  of  an 
alcoholic  drink  that  has  been  adulterated  with 
amylic  alcohol,  and  have  shown  that  they  are 
exceedingly  serious.  The  disturbances  excited  by 
the  other  faults,  when  they  do  not  arise  from  ex- 
cess of  absolute  alcohol,  are  shown  in  symptoms 
of  indigestion  and  in  the  promotion  of  an  acia 


Absinthe.  125 

condition  of  tne  secretions  of  the   body,  beyond 
what  is  natural. 

Presuming  therefore  it  be  actually  determined 
by  any  one  that  he  will  take  some  alcoholic  fluid, 
he  will  do  nearest  to  that  which  is  most  wise  if  he 
takes  wines  or  other  spirituous  drinks  in  which 
the  quantity  of  alcohol  is  simply  confined  to  the 
natural  amount,  in  which  the  process  of  fermenta- 
tion has  ceased,  and  in  which  no  foreign  substance 
lias  been  introduced  to  add  either  bouquet,  body, 
piquancy,  narcotising  influence,  or  other  artificial 
quality. 

ABSINTHE. 

The  admitted  addition  of  some  actively  poison- 
ous substances  to  alcohol,  in  order  to  produce  a 
new  luxury,  is  the  evil  most  disastrous.  The  drink 
sold  under  the  name  of  absinthe  is  peculiarly  for- 
midable. In  this  liquor  five  drachms  of  the  es- 
sence of  absinthium,  or  wormwood,  are  added  to  one 
hundred  quarts,  of  alcohol.  Thus  the  liquor  is  not 
only  very  strong  as  a  mere  alcoholic  drink,  but  it  is 
charged  with  another  agent  which  has  been  dis- 
covered to  exert  the  most  powerful  and  dangerous 
action  upon  the  nervous  functions.  The  essence 
of  absinthium  in  doses  of  from  thirty  to  fifty  grains 
produces  in  dogs  and  rabbits  signs  of  extreme 
terror  and  trembling,  followed  by  stupor  and  in- 
sensibility. In  larger  doses  it  causes  epileptiform 
convulsions,  foaming  at  the  mouth,  and  stertor  of 
the  breathing.  Its  effects,  as  they  occur  from  the 
taking  of  it  in  the  form  of  absinthe  in  man,  have 
been  most  ably  described  to  me  by  one  who  in- 


126  On  Alcohol. 

dulged  in  it  until  it  induced  in  him  the  peculiar 
epileptiform  seizure.  He  described  the  effects  as 
resembling  those  produced  by  haschish,  the  nar- 
cotic of  the  East  which  has  been  known  for  ages 
as  the  nepenthes  of  Homer,  and  which  owes  its 
properties  to  extract  of  Indian  hemp  or  Cannabis 
indica.  The  partial  insensibility  caused  by  the 
absinthe  is  attended  with  the  ideal  existence  of 
long  intervals  of  time,  in  which  the  events  of  a 
whole  life  are  arrayed  and  appreciated,  to  be  suc- 
ceeded by  terrific  hallucinations  and  intellectual 
weakness,  ending  in  unconscious  struggling  as  if 
for  life.  In  time,  if  the  use  of  the  absinthe  be 
continued,  these  phenomena  become  permanently 
established  and  the  result  is  inevitably  fatal. 

The  doubly  poisonous  absinthe  is  made  the 
more  seductive  to  its  victims  by  the  fact  that  it 
excites  a  morbid  craving  for  food  which  is  never 
felt  except  when  it  is  tempted  by  the  destroying 
agent.  Indeed  such  are  the  terrible  consequences 
incident  to  this  agent,  that  I  agree  with  Dr.  De- 
caisne  in  maintaining  that  it  ought,  by  legal  pro- 
vision, to  be  forbidden  as  an  article  for  human 
consumption  in  all  civilized  communities.  Even 
in  small  quantities  taken  daily,  say  one  or  two 
wineglassfuls,  it  causes  quickly  a  permanent  dys- 
pepsia, and,  what  is  of  still  more  consequence,  it 
tempts  its  victims  on  and  on,  so  that  they  cannot 
take  food  until  absinthe  has  prompted  the  desire 
for  it,  by  which  time  they  are  too  often  hopelessly 
and  mortally  in  its  power. 

Until  recently  absinthe  has  not  been  publicly 
offered  for  sale  in  this  country  on  a  large  scale. 


Addition  of  Other  Agents.  127 

But  now,  unhappily,  the  poison  is  openly  an- 
nounced even  here,  and  the  consumption  is  on  the 
increase  ;  I  am  doing  therefore  a  public  duty  in 
denouncing  its  use  solemnly  from  this  platform, 
whence  so  much  that  is  beneficial  to  society  has 
for  a  century  past  been  spoken. 

ADDITION   OF   OTHER  AGENTS. 

The  intentional  additions  of  poisonous  agents  to 
the  alcohol  of  ales,  wines,  and  spirits  pale  when 
absinthe  appears  in  sight,  but  they  are  not  to  be 
ignored.  It  is  true  that  we  very  often  hear  ac- 
counts of  the  effects  for  evil  of  bad  wine,  when,  in 
fact,  the  evil  is  due  to  the  excess  of  ordinary  alco- 
hol that  has  been  taken  by  the  complainant.  At 
the  same  time  it  is  not  to  be  denied  that  there 
exists  in  our  midst  a  system  of  mixing,  compound- 
ing, blending,  and  reducing  wines  and  spirits, 
which,  carried  even  to  artistic  perfection,  is  ad- 
ditionally prejudicial  to  the  business  of  selling  the 
various  alcoholic  beverages. 

To  be  just  to  our  own  age,  this  artistic  per- 
formance is  not  an  invention  of  it.  The  adultera- 
tion of  wine  is  indeed  one  of  the  oldest  devices, 
extending  from  the  Greeks  and  Romans  onwards 
to  this  day.  In  the  Middle  Ages  many  prohibitory 
acts  were  passed  against  it  by  various  govern- 
ments. As  late  as  the  close  of  the  seventeenth 
century  an  act  was  passed  by  Duke  Everhard 
Louis  of  Wiirtemberg  making  it  an  offence  pun- 
ishable with  death  and  confiscation  of  property  to 
adulterate  wine  with  bismuth,  sulphur,  or  the  salt 
of  lead  called  litharge,  now  known  as  the  yellow 


128  On  Alcohol. 

protoxide  of  lead.  In  the  year  1705-6,  John  Jacob 
Ernhi,  of  Eslingen,  was  actually  beheaded  for 
carrying  out  adulteration  with  the  forbidden 
poisonous  lead  compound. 

Into  our  modern  civilization  a  different  system 
of  treating  strong  drinks,  in  order  to  rectify  bad 
qualities  or  to  impart  new,  is,  as  a  rule,  followed. 
The  plan  of  using  gypsum  or  sulphate  of  lime  to 
remove  the  acidity  of  wine,  a  practice  that  was 
followed  both  by  the  Greeks  and  Romans,  is,  how- 
ever, still  resorted  to ;  so  also  is  the  practice  of 
using  lime  for  the  same  purpose,  and  for  which 
Jack  Falstaff  so  severely  criticises  the  landlord  of 
the '"Boar's  Head": 

"  You  rogue,  here's  lime  in  this  sack :  There  is 
nothing  but  roguery  to  be  found  in  villanous  man : 
yet  a  coward  is  worse  than  a  cup  of  sack  with 
lime  in  it ;  a  villanous  coward." 

But,  on  the  whole,  the  new  day  has  brought 
new  plans  and  new  intentions,  having  reference  to 
the  different  forms  of  drinks,  namely,  ales,  wines, 
and  spirits,  which  pass  from  the  hands  of  the  ven- 
dor to  the  consumer. 

ALES. 

The  practice  of  adulteration  the  least  hurtful  is 
carried  on  in  ales ;  that  at  all  events  is  my  ex- 
perience of  the  ales  sold  in  London,  and  I  speak 
from  a  practical  knowledge  of  the  facts.  A  few 
years  ago  a  well-known  statist  asked  me  to  under- 
take for  him  a  research  on  the  ales  sold  in  London, 
with  a  view  to  the  detection  of  the  adulterations 
in  them.  For  many  weeks  this  gentleman  himself 


Ales.  129 

collected  beers  and  ales  from  different  retail  houses 
in  the  most  diverse  parts  of  this  metropolis,  and 
neither  trouble  nor  expense  was  spared  in  the  ex- 
amination of  these  samples,  in  order  to  arrive  at 
correct  results  as  to  the  composition  of  the  fluids 
thus  retailed.  I  may  state  at  once  that  I  did  not 
in  any  one  instance  find  a  truly  dangerous  adultera- 
tion. I  found  that  to  many  samples  common  salt 
had  been  added,  and  to  some  sugar ;  but  the  grand 
adulteration  was  water,  by  which  the  consumer 
was,  if  I  may  so  express  it,  fraudulently  benefited 
and  the  government  proportionately  defrauded.  If 
this  aqueous  adulteration  were  not  carried  on,  our 
registrars  of  deaths  and  collectors  of  revenues 
would  both  show  heavier  totals. 

There  is  a  prevailing  notion  that  to  malt  liquor, 
bitter  substances,  such  as  strychnine,  or  narcotic 
substances,  such  as  cocculus  indicus,  are  added. 
Neumann  says  that  in  his  time,  that  is  just  one 
hundred  years  ago,  clary,  cocculus  indicus,  and 
Bohemian  rosemary  were  added  to  matt  liquors  in 
order  to  increase  their  intoxicating  powers,  and  he 
states  that  the  last-named  substance,  Bohemian 
rosemary,  produced  a  raving  intoxication.  I  know 
it  is  also  urged,  in  this  day,  that  there  is  no  known 
application  for  the  quantity  of  cocculus  indicus  that 
is  sold  except  it  be  for  the  adulteration  of  malt 
liquors.  I  will  not  dispute  the  matter,  but  I  con- 
tent myself  with  stating  that  I  have  never  detected 
any  foreign  body  of  the  kind,  and  that  in  the  whole 
of  my  experience  of  the  effect  of  malt  liquors  on 
man,  I  have  never  known  a  symptom  produced 
indicative  of  the  effects  of  such  substances. 


I  jo  On  Alcohol. 

The  stronger  ales  and  stouts  are  injurious  main- 
ly from  the  alcohol  they  contain.  Those  which 
have  not  ceased  fermenting,  and  from  which 
gas  is  escaping,  produce  a  persistent  dyspepsia 
in  persons  who  indulge  in  them,  a  dyspepsia  at- 
tended with  flatulency,  painful  distension  of  the 
stomach,  and  with  loss  of  proper  muscular  power 
of  the  stomach,  by  which  deficiency  the  trituration 
of  food  is  impeded  and  rendered  imperfect.  At 
the  same  time  the  action  of  the  gastric  fluids  upon 
the  food  is  made  less  effective.  There  is  at  the 
present  day  in  the  market  a  substance  used  as  an 
addition  to  ales,  which  is  called  saccharina.  It  is 
sold  in  the  form  of  the  ordinary  sugar-loaf.  It  is 
made  by  the  action  of  diluted  sulphuric  acid  upon 
starchy  matter,  and  is,  in  fact,  a  grape  sugar.  It 
gives  to  the  ale  body  and  sweetness.  It  is  in  itself 
a  fattening  food,  and  as  it  is  the  same  as  that  form 
of  sugar  which  is  found  in  those  who  suffer  from 
the  disease  called  diabetes,  and  which  produces  the 
symptoms  of  that  disease,  it  cannot  be  taken  in 
quantity  without  some  indirect  risk  of  danger. 

.WINES. 
/ 

The  evils  arising  from  wines,  apart  from  those 
which  are  due  to  the  natural  ethylic  alcohol  they 
should  contain,  are  derived  from  several  sources. 
The  wine  that  has  not  ceased  to  ferment,  and  \\  hen 
uncorked  is  found  to  be  charged  with  gas,  is  often 
as  injurious  as  beer  in  which  the  fermentation  has 
not  ended.  It  produces  a  fermenting  process 
"within  the  body,  and  gives  rise  to  those  phenome- 
na of  dyspepsia  tc  which  allusion  has  already  been 


Wines.  131 

made.  Wine  that  has  once  been  acid  and  has  been 
treated  with  lime  in  order  that  the  acidity  may  be 
neutralised,  is  open  to  the  objection  of  an  excess 
of  salts  of  lime.  It  has  been  urged  against  wines 
treated  in  this  manner  that  they  lead  to  calculous 
disease  when  they  are  taken  in  quantity  for  long 
periods.  I  must  answer  to  this  suggestion  that  I 
have  not  had  experience  of  the  slightest  evidence 
that  would  support  it,  nor  do  I  think  there  is  suf- 
ficient of  such  wine  consumed  to  warrant  any  con- 
clusion of  the  kind.  Wine  if  adulterated  with 
amylic  alcohol  is  unquestionably  dangerous,  owing 
to  those  physiological  effects  produced  by  the 
adulterant  to  which  I  specially  directed  attention 
in  the  second  lecture  of  this  course.  Wines  that 
are  beaded  are  injurious,  owing  to  the  foreign 
mixture  for  beading  that  has  been  added  to  them, 
and  which  I  shall  presently  describe. 

Some  substances  that  form  in  natural  wines  ex- 
ert an  effect  on  the  animal  body  when  they  are 
taken  into  it.  These  substances  are  principally 
aldehyde  and  acetic  acid.  Aldehyde  when  it  is 
present  in  wine  communicates  to  it  a  natural  bou- 
quet. You  will  find  on  the  table  a  pure  specimen 
of  aldehyde,  and  you  will  also  find  specimens  of 
natural  wines,  kindly  lent  to  me  by  Mr.  Denman, 
in  which  this  change  of  alcohol  by  oxidation  has 
taken  place,  In  the  year  1848  the  late  Sir  James 
Simpson,  of  Edinburgh,  discovered  that  aldehyde 
would  produce  anaesthetic  sleep  when  its  vapor 
was  inhaled,  and  I  have  since  submitted  it  to  ex- 
periment with  a  view  of  testing  its  action  on  the 
living  body.  I  find  it  is  a  rapidly  intoxicating 


132  On  Alcohol. 

agent,  sharp  to  the  nerves  of  sense,  and  acting 
with  greater  rapidity  than  alcohol,  and  with  a  less 
prolonged  effect,  for  it  is  soluble  in  water,  and  is 
so  volatile  that  it  boils  at  72°  Fahr.  It  is  there- 
fore quickly  diffused  and  quickly  eliminated  from 
the  body.  The  action  of  aldehyde  upon  the  liv- 
ing body  has  been  as  yet  insufficiently  studied. 
It  has  a  close  relation  to  the  narcotic  action  of  al- 
cohol, and  the  symptoms  it  produces  are  so  similar 
I  am  inclined  to  believe  that  the  narcotism  which 
follows  the  administration  of  alcoholic  spirit  is 
partly  due  to  its  production. 

The  presence  of  acetic  acid  in  wines  is  on  the 
whole  not  injurious,  if  the  wine  in  other  respects 
be  free  of  adulteration.  The  tendency  of  this  acid 
itself  is  to  promote  the  digestion  of  albuminous 
foods,  and  I  have  sometimes  observed  in  persons 
whose  digestive  power  is  feeble,  signs  of  improve- 
ment under  its  use.  In  saying  this  I  do  not  how- 
ever wish  to  convey  that  therefore  a  rough  acid 
wine  should  be  taken  for  indigestion,  for  the  acid 
in  such  instances  may  be  administered  without  the 
wine  and  perhaps  Avith  greater  advantage.  I  only 
wish  to  record  that  acidity  of  wine,  in  which  fer- 
mentation has  ceased,  is  not  a  source  of  additional 
injury.  The  astringent  acid — called  tannic — of 
some  wines  has  been  advanced  as  useful  in  the 
cases  of  certain  persons  who  suffer  from  laxity  of 
body,  and  who  require  astringent  remedies.  It 
would  be  wrong  to  dispute  that  there  may  be  in 
\vinc  a  virtue  of  this  kind,  but  it  is  not  peculiar 
to  wine.  It  can  be  secured  when  it  is  wanted 
without  wine  at  all,  and  in  a  more  certain  way; 


Spirits.  133 

This  remark  holds  equally  good  in  respect  to  what 
may  be  favorably  spoken  of  as  the  saline  substan- 
ces which  some  wines  naturally  present.  I  mean 
to  say  that  the  saline  constituents  can  be  adminis- 
tered with  more  certain  and  therefore  with  better 
effect,  independently  of  wine. 

SPIRITS. 

Into  the  different  spirits  commonly  sold,  several 
substances  are  introduced  which  exert  more  or 
less  of  baneful  influence  on  the  body  that  receives 
them.     The  addition  of  amylic  alcohol  has  been 
already  condemned  and  need  not  again  be  men- 
tioned, and  I  omit  intentionally,  for  the  sake  of 
brevity,  a  great  number  of  other  added  substances 
which  do  not  seem  to  me  to  be  active  for  evil, 
though  they  were  possibly  better  left  out  of  the 
animal  organism.    After  these  are  withdrawn  there 
remain  many  other  agents  which  cannot  fairly  be 
omitted  from  our  consideration.     There  is  oil  of 
juniper,  oil  of  bitter  almonds,  potassa,  alum,  nitric 
acid,  oil  of  vitriol,  or  sulphuric  acid,  and  butyric 
acid.     In  even  small  quantities  every  one  of  these 
agents  is  injurious  to  the  body  if  it  be  taken  for 
any  long  continued  period  of  time.      The  oil  of 
juniper  is  an  active  diuretic,  and  thereby  is  inju- 
rious to  the  excreting  power  of  one  of  the  most 
important  of  the  vital  organs.     The  oil  of  bitter 
almonds  contains,  unless  it  be  specially  purified, 
hydrocyanic  or  prussic  acid,  and  exerts  then  in 
small  and  often-repeated  quantities  a  prejudicial 
influence  on  the  nervous  functions.    Potassa  causes 


134  On  Alcohol. 

a  dry  and  caustic  action  upon  the  mucous  mem- 
brane of  the  mouth,  throat,  and  stomach,  for  the 
production  of  which  action  it  is  actually  added 
systematically,  that  it  may  give  the  peculiar  sharp, 
ness  called  "  biting  the  palate." 

Alum  is  a  powerful  astringent,  producing  con- 
stipation, and  sustaining  a  persistent  dyspepsia  so 
long  as  it  is  being  swallowed.  Nitric  acid  is  an 
astringent,  exerting  also  a  physiological  action  on 
the  liver.  Sulphuric  acid  is  an  astringent;  and 
butyric  acid,  as  I  found  in  an  original  research 
which  I  once  conducted  with  it,  causes  a  congested 
or  inflammatory  condition  of  the  whole  track  of 
the  mucous  membrane. 

Thus  each  one  of  these  agents  added  to  the  al- 
coholic drinks  increases  the  evils  that  are  likely  to 
arise  from  the  alcohol  itself.  Let  us  admit  that 
the  added  evils  are  small,  nay,  I  had  nearly  said, 
infinitesimal,  when  considered  by  the  measure- 
ment of  one  administration.  But  who  can  mea- 
sure by  that  standard  ?  When  once  the  taste  for 
any  of  these  unnatural  substances  is  acquired  it 
grows  by  what  it  feeds  on,  and  that  which  was 
infinitesimal  at  the  beginning  becomes  after  long 
continuance  a  serious  charge  for  the  body  to  bear 
daily. 

The  spirit  in  common  use  that  is  most  subject 
to  the  chemicals  I  have  named  is  gin.  Gin  has  to 
be  made  cordial,  to  be  sweetened,  to  be  rendered 
creamy  and  smooth,  to  be  flavored,  to  be  made 
biting  to  the  palate,  to  be  beaded,  and  *vaat  not 
else.  To  be  made  "cordial"  it  must  be  charged 
with  oil  of  juniper,  with  essence  of  angelica,  with 


Spirits.  135 

oil  of  bitter  almonds,  with  oil  of  coriander,  and 
with  oil  of  carraway.  To  sweeten  it,  it  must  be 
treated  with  oil  of  vitriol,  oil  of  almonds,  oil  of 
juniper,  spirits  of  wine  and  loaf  sugar ;  to  "  force 
down  "  the  same  it  must  be  further  treated  with  a 
solution  of  alum  and  carbonate  of  potassa.  To  be 
rendered  creamy  and  smooth,  it  must  be  sweeten- 
ed with  sugar,  and  lightly  charged  with  a  small 
quantity  of  garlic,  Canadian  balsam,  or  Strasburg 
turpentine.  To  give  it  piquancy,  it  must  have  had 
digested  in  it  shreds  of  hocse-radish.  To  be  made 
biting  to  the  palate,  it  must  receive  that  touch  of 
caustic  potash  of  which  I  have  spoken. 

As  you  see  the  habituated  gin-drinker  partaking 
of  his  favorite  drink  you  observe,  often,  that  he 
enjoys  it  the  more  if  it  be  what  he  calls  "pearly," 
or  "  beaded."  He  holds  up  the  precious  liquid  in 
his  glass,  and  as  he  sees  the  oily  fluid  roll  down  the 
side,  as  beads,  leaving  each  a  creamy  train  behind 
it,  he  rejoices  in  his  treasure.  It  is  creme  de  la 
cr&ine  of  gin.  Those  wicked,  pearly  drops  are,  to 
his  flushed  eyes,  the  proofs  of  the  purity  and  ex- 
cellence of  what  he  would  probably  tell  you  was, 
without  mistake,  the  genuine  article.  The  genu- 
ineness consists  in  the  fact  that  our  enthusiastic 
friend's  gin  has  been  beaded  by  the  addition  of  the 
following  artistic  mixture : — An  ounce  of  oil  of 
sweet  almonds  has  been  added  to  an  ounce  of  oil 
of  vitriol.  These  have  been  rubbed  together  in  a 
mortar  with  two  ounces  of  loaf  sugar  until  a  paste 
has  been  formed.  The  paste  has  next  been  dis- 
solved in  spirit  of  wine  until  a  thin  liquid  has  been 
produced  ;  and  this,  added  to  one  hundred  gallons 


136  On  Alcohol. ' 

of  gin,  has  given  the  fine  pearly  bead  that  is  so 
much  admired. 

Redding,  in  his  history  and  description  of  mod- 
ern wines,  narrated  in  his  day  the  many  receipts 
that  were  openly  published  in  the  then  existing 
publicans'  guides  and  licensed  victuallers'  directo- 
ries for  the  artificial  manufacturing  of  wines,  and 
for  modifying  spirituous  liquors.  I  have  gone  for 
my  information  to  a  similar  work  of  the  present 
day,  "  The  New  Mixing  and  Reducing  Book," 
which  is,  I  understand,  one  of  the  handbooks  of  the 
retailer,  the  same  to  him  as  the  pharmacopoeia  is 
to  the  druggist,  and  to  be  followed  in  all  the  varied 
arts  as  implicitly.  I  cannot  leave  this  book  with- 
out reading  from  it  a  quotation  that  bears  directly 
on  the  health  of  the  poorer  classes,  who  indulge  in 
gin. 

"  Gin,  it  may  be  observed,  is  of  all  the  spirits 
ordinarily  kept  by  a  publican  the  one  which,  when 
cle\  erly  managed,  yields  him  the  greatest  and  se- 
curest profit.  The  reason  of  this  is  that  there  is 
hardly  any  definite  selling  strength  for  gin,  espe- 
cially if  it  be  sweetened.  Within  very  wide  limits 
no  complaint  is  made  by  customers  on  the  score 
of  weakness,  provided  only  the  gin  is  creamy,  pal- 
atable, and  sharp  tasted.  But  the  slightest  tc.int, 
or  the  slightest  fault  of  color,  or  a  sensible  differ- 
ence in  the  usual  flavor,  will  lead  to  dissatisfaction 
and  loss  of  custom.  Strong  or  unsweetened  gin  is 
in  comparatively  little  request,  and  then  with  few 
exceptions  only  amongst  the  respectable  or  monied 
classes.  At  least  three-fourths  of  the  spirits  sold 
over  the  counter  of  a  public  house,  consists  of  a 


The  Mixture  called  Gin.  137 

sweetened  or  made-up  gin ;  and  as  the  sugar 
greatly  aders  the  character  of  the  liquor  and 
deadens  the  original  strength,  it  is  possible  for  the 
retailer  to  consult  his  own  interests  by  a  liberal 
vidition  of  water  without  in  any  degree  exciting 
the  disapprobation,  or  injuring  the  heaith  of  those 
who  patronise  his  establishment. 

"  As  a  tolerably  safe  general  rule  there  will  be 
no  occasion  to  fear  dissatisfaction  when  sweetened 
gin  is  not  brought  below  35  or  even  40  per  cent. 
U.  P.  It  is  then  nearly  five  times  as  strong  as  old 
ale.  Much  more  is  thought  of  a  pleasant  warming 
aromatic  taste  or  smack  than  of  simple  alcoholic 
strength.  But  as  the  most  careful  man  may  some- 
times overshoot  the  mark  in  reducing,  it  is  advisa- 
ble to  know  how  to  restore  the  requisite  degree  of 
pungency  and  sharpness,  without  having  recourse 
to  the  use  of  so  expensive  an  agent  as  spirit  of 
wine.  Supposing,  then,  that  by  accident  the 
strength  of  a  parcel  of  gin  has  been  lowered  rather 
too  far,  a  good  and  cheap  remedy  is  the  following : 
— For  100  gallons,  i  ounce  of  cassia,  y2  ounce  of 
chilies.  Steep  for  a  week  in  a  pint  of  spirit  of  wine ; 
then  mix  well  with  the  gin." 

The  other  spirituous,  liquors,  rum,  whisky,  and 
brandy,  are  less  falsified  than  gin.  Rum  is  occa- 
sionally adulterated  with  an  essential  oi-1  like  butyrin 
and  with  butyric  acid,  these  two  substances  being 
present  in  some  natural  rum,  to  which  they  give  a 
special  flavor.  Whisky  is  modified  by  blending,  so 
as  to  communicate  qualities  of  smoothness  and 
softness.  The  yellowish  color  given  to  whisky  is 
produced  by  pouring  the  spirit  into  sherry  casks, 


138  On  Alcohol. 

or  by  stirring  it  up  with  the  lees  of  wine.  These 
refined  whiskies  are  prepared  for  the  rich  and 
sumptuous ;  the  poor,  it  is  recommended,  should 
be  treated  with  the  spirit  they  understand  best ;  a 
sharp  and  potent  drink,  that  will  bring  the  tears 
into  the  eye's,  and  make  the  throat  smart  as  it  goes 
down. 

Brandy,  except  when  treated  with  fusel  oil,  is 
not,  I  believe,  adulterated  with  any  injurious  com- 
pound. But  it  carries  with  it  naturally  a  peculiar 
ether,  which  gives  to  it  a  special  odor.  This  ether 
is  very  heavy  when  compared  with  ethylic  ether. 
Its  specific  gravity  is  862,  taking  water  at  1,000,  and 
its  boiling  point  is  479°  on  Fahrenheit's  scale.  It  is 
all  but  insoluble  in  water,  to  which,  however,  it 
communicates  its  peculiar  odor.  It  exerts  on  the 
body  an  injurious  influence ;  it  causes  nausea,  thirst, 
and  pain  in  the  stomach.  It  seems  also  to  arrest 
the  due  secretion  of  bile. 

SECONDARY    PHYSIOLOGICAL    ACTION    OF    SIMPLE 
ALCOHOL. 

I  leave  now  the  consideration  of  the  evils  arising 
from  the  action  of  the  different  extraneous  sub- 
stances that  are  present  in  alcoholic  drinks  to  re- 
sume the 'study  of  the  action  of  ethylic  alcohol  it- 
self when  it  is  free~  of  any  such  combinations.  1 
have  to  consider  under  this  head  the  effect  of  the 
consumption  of  alcohol  in  its  slow  and  progressive 
course,  in  what  may  be  called  its  secondary  mani- 
festations of  effect  upon  those  who  for  long  periods 
of  their  lives  submit  themselves  to  its  influence. 


Secondary  Physiological  Action  of  Alcohol.  139 

I  have  shown  that  in  the  course  of  acute  intoxi- 
cation from  this  spirit  there  are  four  degrees  or 
stages,  each  degree  marked  by  different  series  of 
phenomena.  In  the  secondary,  or,  technically 
speaking,  chronic  intoxication,  from  the  same 
agent,  there  are  in  like  manner  four  distinct  de- 
grees, each  presenting  distinct  phenomena.  A  mi- 
nority of  persons  who  habitually  take  alcohol 
escape  with  impunity  from  injury.  Some  of  these 
escape  because  they  only  subject  themselves  to  it 
on  a  scale  so  moderate  they  can  scarcely  be  said  to 
be  under  its  spell.  If  they  take  it  regularly  they 
never  exceed  an  ounce  to  an  ounce  and  a  half  of 
the  pure  spirit  in  the  day  ;  and  if  they  indulge  in  a 
little  more  than  this,  it  is  only  at  recreative  seasons, 
after  which  they  atone  for  what  they  have  done  by 
a  temporary  total  abstinence.  Others  take  more 
freely  than  the  above,  but  escape  because  they  are 
physiologically  constituted  in  such  manner  that 
they  can  rapidly  eliminate  the  fluid  from  their 
bodies.  These,  if  they  are  moderately  prudent, 
may  even  go  so  far  as  to  indulge  in  alcohol  and  yet 
suffer  no  material  harm.  But  they  are  a  limited 
few,  if  the  term  may  be  applied  to  them,  who  are 
thus  privileged.  The  large  majority  of  those  who 
drink  alcohol  in  any  of  its  disguises  are  injured  by 
it.  As  a  cause  of  disease  it  gives  origin  to  great 
populations  of  afflicted  persons,  many  of  whom 
suffer  even  to  death  without  suspecting  from  what 
they  suffer,  and  unsuspected.  Some  of  these  live 
just  short  of  the  first  stage  of  natural  old  age ; 
others  to  ripe  middle  age  ;  others  only  to  ripe  ado 
lescence. 


140  On  Alcohol. 

DETERIORATION  OF   THE  BODY  UNDER  THE  FIRST 
DEGREE. 

The  first  degree  of  the  secondary  action  of  alco- 
hol is  evidenced  in  those  who  by  constant  habit 
imbibe  an  alcoholic  stimulant  to  the  simple  extent 
of  producing  arterial  relaxation,  and  of  setting  the 
heart  at  liberty  to  perform  an  increased  series  of 
motive  contractions.  They  do  not,  as  a  rule,  re- 
ceive what  is  commonly  called  an  excess  of  any  al- 
coholic drink,  but  they  become  trained  to  a  sensa- 
tion of  want  for  it  and  to  an  appetite  which,  while 
all  seems  to  go  well,  they  have  no  desire  to  resist, 
though  they  may  keep  it  within  what  they  conceive 
ar.c  its  due  limits.  Such  persons  confine  their  liba- 
tions to  four  or  six  ounces  of  alcohol  per  day,  a 
couple  of  glasses  of  sherry  or  of  ale  at  luncheon, 
three  or  four  glasses  of  wine  at  dinner,  one  or  two 
at  dessert,  and  a  mixture  of  spirit  and  water  before 
going  to  bed.  Such  is  a  common  and  a  "  tempe- 
rate day,"  but  reckoned  up  it  means  at  least  from 
four  to  six  ounces  of  alcohol.  The  primary  effect 
of  such  a  quantity  we  know.  Continued  daily  it 
induces  a  new  physiological  and  altogether  unnat- 
ural condition,  in  which  the  sense  of  acquired  ne- 
cessity enforces  desire,  until  at  last  the  spirit  is 
made  to  became  a  positive  requirement  of  the  or- 
ganic and  the  mental  life.  Every  extra  effort  must 
be  preceded  by  the  resort  to  the  stimulant.  Every 
prolonged  weariness  must  be  relieved  by  the  same 
measure ;  but  when  the  effect  of  the  stimulant  has 
speedily  subsided,  there  is  left  a  greater  exhaustion 
than  before.  Another  resource  to  the  artificia'  aid 


•   Deterioration  of  the  Body.  141 

completes  the  exhaustion,  and  makes  it  pass  into 
dulness  and  drowsiness  without  natural  and  sound 
sleep,  and  with  an  unbearable  sense  of  after  pros- 
tration. 

For  many  years,  in  the  young  and  adolescent, 
this  alcoholic  life  may  be  carried  on  without  any 
evidence  being  rendered  of  the  progress  of  physi- 
cal deterioration.  In  the  young  the  processes  of 
assimilation,  of  secretion,  and  of  excretion,  are  in 
their  full  activity,  and  the  poisonous  agent  with 
which  the  blood  and  tissues  are  saturated  is  dis- 
posed of  so  readily  and  promptly,  it  does  not  stay 
long  enough  in  contact  with  these  parts  to  vitiate 
them.  This  is  a  very  homely  way  of  putting  the 
fact,  but  it  is  scientifically  true.  The  young,  there- 
fore, seem  to  escape,  and  I  believe  that  up  to  the 
close  of  the  first  term  of  the  natural  life,  that  is  to 
say,  to  the  close  of  that  period  of  full  growth  and 
development  which  extends  to  thirty  years,  they 
sometimes  escape  so  successfully  that  if  they  could 
but  stop  in  their  course  at  that  point  they  might 
go  through  the  remaining  terms  of  existence  with- 
out any  further  important  modification  of  function. 

Unfortunately,  it  is  the  rarest  of  events  that  a 
person  artificially  stimulated  by  alcohol,  to  the 
period  named,  gives  up  the  practice.  The  ma- 
jority are  utterly  ignorant  of  the  dangers  that  are 
ahead,  and  the  sense  of  support  to  which  they 
have  been  educated  by  the  practice  leads  them  on 
to  pursue  it  with  even  a  greater  reliance  upon  it 
than  before,  and  with  a  feeling  of  more  urgent  de- 
mand. In  a  word,  the  sensation  that  they  cannot 
do  without  it,  the  sensation  of  lowness  and  depres- 


142  On  Alcohol. 

sion  when  it  is  by  any  accident  withheld,  and  the 
contrast  of  lightness  and  activity  when  it  is  re- 
gained, are  so  powerful,  in  their  influences  upon 
the  mind,  there  is  no  resisting  the  belief  of  the 
absolute  necessity. 

But  when  the  body  is  fully  developed ;  when  the 
extra  vital  capacity  which  attended  youth  is  ex- 
pended in  growth  and  development ;  when  all  the 
organs  have  assumed  their  full  size  and  activity ; 
when  the  balance  of  secretion  is  so  nicely  set  in 
all  parts  that  not  one  secretion  can  be  disturbed 
without  a  disturbance  of  the  whole;  when  the 
spring  of  the  elastic  tissues  is  reduced  ;  when  the 
lungs  cannot  fail  ever  so  little  in  their  function  of 
throwing  off  the  gaseous  products  of  combustion 
without  a  vicarious  extrusion  of  gases  into  the 
alimentary  canal ;  when  the  completed  organic 
moving  parts  become  encumbered  with  fatty  mat- 
ter interposed  between  them,  or  laid  out  around 
them  ;  then  the  effect  of  alcoholic  spirits  begins  to 
be  realised.  The  fluid  is  now  retained  longer  in 
the  living  house ;  is  decomposed  less  quickly ;  is 
thrown  out  by  primary  or  secondary  elimination 
less  speedily. 

The  action  of  alcohol  under  these  new  condi- 
tions, so  favorable  in  every  sense  to  the  series  of 
changes  it  is  capable  of  effecting,  is  twofold.  The 
action  in  the  first  place  is  purely  mechanical.  We 
are  aware  that  it  leads  to  temporary  paralysis  of 
the  vessels  of  the  minute  circulation,  and  that  upon 
this  the  heart  responds  with  a  quicker  propelling 
stroke.  Thus  the  vessels  throughout  the  whole  of 
the  body  are  dilated,  and  are  held  in  a  state  of  un. 


Deterioration  of  the  Body.  143 

natural  relaxation  and  unnatural  tension.  Under 
this  persistent  pressure  their  diameters  change  in 
course  of  time,  and  the  whole  of  the  marvellous 
webvvork  of  blood,  upon  which  the  organs  of  the 
body  are  constructed,  is  deranged,  in  its  mechan- 
ical distribution,  over  its  extended  surface.  Dur- 
ing this  time,  too,  the  function  of  the  heart  be- 
comes perverted.  The  heart  is  truly  an  automatic 
organ,  but  it  is  still  an  organ  which  feels  none  the 
less  severely  the  effect  of  the  stimulus.  If  it  make 
to-day  an  unnatural  number  of  one  hundred  and 
twenty-five  thousand  strokes,  it  cannot  to-morrow 
sink  back,  from  absence  of  its  stimulus,  to  the  nor- 
mal one  hundred  thousand  without  evidencing 
some  disturbance  of  action,  some  feebleness,  some 
hesitation,  or  some  palpitation.  In  fact,  as  it  is  an 
organ  which  by  its  own  stroke  feeds  its  own  struc- 
ture with  blood,  it  is  the  first  to  suffer  from  irre- 
gular supplies  of  blood.  Thus,  under  alcohol,  the 
nutrition  of  the  heart  is  mechanically  modified. 
Whipped  into  undue  work,  it  becomes  like  the 
muscles  of  the  blacksmith's  arm  or  the  opera- 
dancer's  leg,  of  undue  size  and  power ;  and  in  pro- 
portion as  this  evil  increases,  the  necessity  for  the 
stimulus  it  calls  for  grows  more  urgent. 

In  turn  this  extreme  power  and  force  of  the 
heart  tells  upon  the -vessels  that  are  fed  by  its 
impulsive  stroke,  and  so  all  the  organs  that  are 
constructed  upon  those  vessels  appreciate  with  ab- 
normal sensitiveness  the  whip  of  the  stimulus,  and 
the  languor  when  the  whip  is  withheld. 

Of  itself  this  extreme  sensitiveness  of  the  heart 
is  sufficiently  momentous,  but  the  ultimate  result* 


144  On  Alcohol. 

upon  the  body  at  large  are  perhaps  more  impor- 
tant than  the  pure  local  change  that  is  instituted 
in  that  perfect  and  elaborate  pulsating  mechanism. 
The  heart  not  only  becomes  enlarged,  but  its  vari- 
ous valvular  and  other  mechanical  parts,  subjected 
to  prolonged  strain,  are  thrown  out  of  proportion. 
The  orifices  in  it,  through  which  the  great  floods 
of  blood  issue  in  their  courses,  are  dilated.  The 
exquisite  valves  become  stretched,  and  prevented 
from  assuming  their  refined  adaptations.  The  mi- 
nute filamentous  cords  which  hold  the  valves  in 
due  position  and  tension  are  elongated,  and  the 
walls  of  the  ventricles  or  forcing-chambers  are 
thickened,  or  as  we  say,  technically,  are  hypertro- 
phied.  Throughout  the  whole  of  its  structures 
the  central  throbbing  organ  is  modified  both  in  its 
mechanism  and  in  its  action. 

But  such  central  modification  cannot  possibly  go 
on  long  without  the  institution  of  other  changes  at 
the  opposite  extremity  or  circumference  of  the  cir- 
cuit of  the  blood.  At  one  moment  the  vital  organs 
feel  the  pressure  of  the  too  powerful  stroke  of 
blood  ;  at  another  moment  they  are  suddenly  aware 
of  an  enfeebled  stroke.  The  brain  is,  for  the  in- 
stant, conscious  of  a  flicker  of  power :  it  is  like 
the  faintest  flicker  of  gas,  which  is  observed 
when,  by  an  accident,  the  pressure  is  disturbed  at 
the  main,  but  it  is  there,  and  the  person  who  ex- 
periences it  is  cognisant  of  its  central  origin.  So 
matters  progress  often  for  months,  or  for  years, 
without  further  evidence  of  subjective  or  objective 
sign  of  increasing  evil.  The  worst  evidence  that 
exists  is,  probably,  the  necessity  for  a  more  frequent 


Deterioration  of  the  Body.  145 

repetition  of  the  stimulus  under  additional  stress 
of  work  or  excitement. 

While  these  changes  in  the  simple  mechanism 
of  the  circulation  are  in  course  of  advancement, 
there  are  also  in  development  certain  other  changes 
which  are  much  more  delicate  and  minute,  yet  not 
less  important.  These  consist  of  direct  deteriora- 
tions of  structure  of  the  organic  tissues  themselves. 
We  are,  at  the  present  time,  only  on  the  border-land 
of  a  new  knowledge  on  this  subject,  and  I  myself 
am,  in  this  matter,  a  mere  outpost  wandering  won- 
deringly,  and  trying  to  observe  what  is  going  on, 
but  as  yet,  though  thus  advanced,  unprepared  to 
speak  with  so  much  precision  and  fulness  of  detail 
as  I  would  desire.  The  following  explanation, 
simply  spoken,  illustrates  the  degenerative  changes 
of  organic  structure  from  the  continued  use  of 
alcohol. 

Alcohol  produces  physical  deterioration  by  de- 
stroying the  integrity  of  the  colloidal  matter  of 
which  the  tissues  are  composed.  I  have  explained 
that  all  the  organic  parts  are  constructed  out  of 
colloidal  substance ;  that  every  such  part,  includ- 
ing the  blood-vessels,  to  their  minutest  ramifica- 
tions, is  composed  of  this  colloid  material  arranged 
.  in  different  forms  and  plans  to  suit  the  design  of 
the  part,  whether  it  be  a  tube,  like  an  artery,  a 
bundle  of  cross-cut  fibres  like  a  muscle,  or  a  re- 
fracting globe  like  the  crystalline  lens  of  the  eye- 
ball. That  these  parts  should  be  kept  in  their 
integrity,  in  the  midst  of  their  diversity,  the  ulti- 
mate structure  of  which  they  are  composed  must 
be  held  in  proper  measure  of  construction  with 


146  On  Alcohol. 

water.  Disturb  the  relationship  that  should  exist 
between  the  colloid  and  its  combining  water,  and 
the  character  of  the  colloid  is  at  once  changed. 
Take,  for  example,  some  colloidal  albumen  in  the 
fluid  state. '  Pour  a  little  of  it  on  to  a  glass  plate  as 
a  thin  watery  film.  Then  spread  over  it  a  little 
finely  powdered  caustic  soda,  by  which  to  remove 
and  fix  some  of  the  water  which  previously  held  it 
as  a  liquid.  The  thin  liquid  is  transformed  into  a 
transparent  membrane  which  possesses  elasticity. 
Into  a  porcelain  cup  pour  a  small  quantity  of  the 
same  solution,  and  then  drop  into  the  solution  a 
bead  of  soda ;  soon  you  can  lift  the  solution  from 
the  cup  in  a  solid  mass,  shaped  like  a  concavo-con- 
vex transparent  lens.  I  could  multiply  these  facts 
indefinitely,  but  I  am  anxious  to  indicate  only  one 
particular  fact,  viz.,  that  alcohol  and  its  derivative 
aldehyde  possess  also,  by  their  affinity  for  water, 
the  property  of  destroying  the  integrity  of  the 
colloidal  form  of  matter.  Thus  they  solidify,  or 
render  pectous  the  colloidal  structures.  Take  a 
solution  of  albumen  and  add  to  it  alcohol.  The 
albumen  is  rendered  thick  or  pectous.  Take  a  so- 
lution of  caseine  ;  add  to  it  aldehyde  ;  the  caseine 
is  rendered  thick  or  pectous. 

Animal  tissues  subjected  to  alcohol  can  be  per- 
verted to  any  degree,  and  in  the  most  diverse  and 
apparently  contradictory  ways.  I  can  hold  blood 
permanently  fluid  with  alcohol ;  I  can  solidify  it 
with  the  same  agent.  I  can  reduce  the  size  and 
modify  the  shape  of  the  blood  corpuscles,  and  I 
can  so  modify  those  fine  and  delicate  animal  mem- 
branes which  dialyse  or  allow  to  pass  through  them 


Deterioration  of  the  Body.  147 

the  saline  matter  of  the  blood  and  secretions,  that 
the  process  of  dialysis  shall  be  impeded,  and  that 
which  should  pass  through  shall  be  left  in  combi- 
nation with  the  membrane.  I  can  destroy  the 
elasticity  of  the  blood-vessels  in  the  same  way,  for 
that  depends  upon  the  presence  in  them  of  a  gelat- 
inous colloid  elasticity  also  called  elasticin. 

When,  therefore,  alcohol  holds  long-continued 
contact  with  the  perfectly  developed  colloidal 
tissues,  its  action  upon  them  to  produce  physical 
deterioration  is  simply  inevitable,  and  from  this 
cause  arise  those  fatal  lesions  of  local  organs  which 
mark  the  different  phases  and  stages  of  alcoholic 
disease.  The  commencement  of  the  change  some- 
times shows  itself  visibly  on  the  surface  of  the  body. 
The  vessels  of  the  face  become  permanently  en- 
larged and  suffused  with  blood*  In  cold  weather, 
the  blood  circulating  imperfectly  through  these 
vessels,  and,  not  fully  aerated,  gives  to  the  skin  that 
dull  leaden  hue  which  is  so  characteristically  sig- 
nificant of  prolonged  indulgence.  In  hot  weather, 
the  blood  circulating  more  freely  and  purely,  gives 
to  the  skin  a  red  hue  and  often  a  deep  red  blotch, 
which  is  hardly  less  demonstrative. 

In  this  stage  of  alcoholic  disease  eruptions  upon 
the  skin  occur  to  declare  the  injurious  action  of 
the  spirit  upon  the  colloidal  gelatinous  textures. 
The  epidermis  or  scarf-skin  is  imperfectly  thrown 
off;  it  dies  upon  the  surface,  but  owing  to  defi- 
cient vascular  and  nervous  tone  beneath,  it  is  not 
replaced  so  quickly  as  is  natural.  Thus  the  dead 
debris,  in  form  of  scale  and  sometimes  with  fluid 
beneath,  accumulates ;  the  superficial  nervous  sur- 


148  On  Alcohol. 

face  which  should  be  protected  by  the  newly 
formed  epidermis  is  exposed,  and  irritation  and 
pain  follow  as  a  consequence. 

The  evils,  in  the  slighter  stages  of  alcoholic  dis- 
ease, are  often  connected  with  others,  which  are 
perhaps  passing,  but  which  give  rise  to  very  un- 
pleasant phenomena.  There  is  what  is  called  a 
dyspepsia  or  indigestion,  to  relieve  which  the 
sufferer  too  frequently  resorts  to  the  actual  cause 
of  it  as  the  cure  for  it.  There  is  thirst,  there  is 
uneasiness  of  the  stomach,  flatulency,  and  a  set  of 
so-called  nervous  phenomena,  which  keep  the  mind 
irritable,  and  make  trifling  cares  and  anxieties  as- 
sume an  exaggerated  and  unnatural  character. 
From  the  earliest  period  in  the  history  of  the 
drinking  of  alcohol  these  phenomena  have  been 
observed.  "  Who,"  says  Solomon,  referring  to 
this  action,  "  Who  hath  woe  ?  Who  hath  conten- 
tions? Who  hath  babbling?  Who  hath  wounds 
without  cause?  Who  hath  redness  of  the  eyes?" 

What  modern  physiologist  could  define  better 
the  steady  and  progressive  effect  of  alcohol  upon 
those  who,  even  under  the  guise  of  temperate 
men,  trust  to  it  as  a  support  ?  And  yet  these  evils 
are  minor  compared  with  certain  I  have  to  bring 
forward  in  the  next  and  concluding  lecture. 


LECTURE  VI. 

PHYSICAL  DETERIORATIONS  FROM  ALCOHOL  (con- 
tinued),— INFLUENCE  OF  ALCOHOL  ON  THE  VITAL 
ORGANS. — MENTAL  PHENOMENA  INDUCED  BY  ITS 
USE. — SUMMARY. 

TOWARDS  the  close  of  my  last  lecture  I  touched 
on  the  effects  of  the  continued  action  of  alcohol 
upon  the  colloidal  structures  of  the  body,  indi- 
cating that  it  is  impossible  for  these  structures  to 
escape  deterioration.  I  must  dwell  for  a  few  mo- 
ments longer  on  this  subject. 

The  parts  which  first  suffer  most  from  alcohol 
are  those  expansions  in  the  animal  body  which  the 
anatomists  call  the  membranes.  The  membranes 
are  colloidal  structures,  and  every  organ  is  envel- 
oped in  them.  The  skin  is  a  membranous  en- 
velope. Through  the  whole  of  the  alimentary 
surface,  from  the  lips  downwards,  and  through  the 
bronchial  passages  to  their  minutest  ramifications, 
extends  the  mucous  membrane.  The  lungs,  the 
heart,  the  liver,  the  kidneys  are  folded  in  delicate 
membranes  which  can  be  stripped  easily  from 
these  parts.  If  you  take  a  portion  of  bone,  you 
will  find  it  easy  to  strip  off  from  it  a  membranous 
sheath  or  covering ;  if  you  open  and  examine  a 
joint  you  will  find  both  the  head  and  the  socket 
lined  with  membrane. 

149 


•>  On  Alcohol. 

whole  of  the  intestines  are  enveloped  in 
fine  membrane  called  peritoneum.  All  the  muscles 
are  enveloped  in  membranes,  and  the  fasciculi  or 
bundles  and  fibres  of  muscles  have  their  membra- 
nous sheathing.  The  brain  and  spinal  cord  are 
enveloped  in  three  membranes ;  one  nearest  to 
themselves,  a  pure  vascular  structure,  a  net-work 
of  blood-vessels ;  another,  a  thin  serous  structure ; 
a  third,  a  strong  fibrous  structure.  The  eyeball  is 
a  structure  of  colloidal  humors  and  membranes, 
and  of  nothing  else.  To  complete  the  description, 
l'ie  minute  structures  of  the  vital  organs  are  en- 
rolled in  membranous  matter. 

It  was  held  by  the  old  anatomists  that  this  mem- 
branous arrangement  of  the  body  is  mainly  me- 
chanical. The  parts  and  organs,  according  to  their 
view,  are  supported  and  held  in  position  by  these 
membranous  sheaths  and  pouches  and  coverings. 
Doubtless  this  is  a  portion  of  their  usefulness,  for 
in  fact  they  do  hold  all  the  structures  together  in 
the  most  perfect  order.  But  this  is  only  a  small 
part  of  their  duties.  The  membranes  are  the 
filters  of  the  body.  In  their  absence  there  could 
be  no  building  of  structure,  no  solidification  of 
tissue,  no  organic  mechanism.  Passive  them- 
selves, they  nevertheless  separate  all  structures 
into  their  respective  positions  and  adaptations. 

The  animal  receives  from  the  vegetable  world 
and  from  the  earth  the  food  and  drink  it  requires 
for  its  sustenance  and  motion.  It  receives  colloidal 
food  for  its  muscles ;  combustible  food  for  its  mo- 
tion ;  water  for  the  solution  of  its  various  parts ; 
salt  for  constructive  and  other  physical  purposes. 


The  Animal  Membranes.  151 

These  have  all  to  be  arranged  in  the  body  ;  and  they 
are  arranged  by  means  of  the  membranous  envel- 
opes. Through  these  membranes  nothing  can  pass 
that  is  not  for  the  time  in  a  state  of  aqueous  solu- 
tion like  water  or  soluble  salts.  Water  passes  freely 
through  them,  salts  pass  freely  through  them,  but 
the  constructive  matter  of  the  active  parts  that  ic 
colloidal  does  not  pass ;  it  is  retained  in  them  until  it 
is  chemically  decomposed  into  the  soluble  type  of 
matter.  When  we  take  for  our  food  a  portion  of 
animal  flesh,  it  is  first  resolved,  in  digestion,  into  a 
soluble  fluid  before  it  can  be  absorbed  ;  in  the  blood 
it  is  resolved  into  the  fluid  colloidal  condition ;  in 
the  solids  it  is  laid  down  within  the  membranes 
into  new  structure,  and  when  it  has  played  its  part 
it  is  digested  again,  if  I  may  so  say,  into  a  crystal- 
loidal  soluble  substance -ready  to  be  carried  away 
and  replaced  by  addition  of  new  matter,  then  it  is 
dialysed  or  passed  through  the  membranes  into 
the  blood,  and  is  disposed  of  in  the  excretions. 

See  then  what  an  all-important  part  these  mem- 
branous structures  play  in  the  animal  life.  Upon 
their  integrity  all  the  .silent  work  of  the  building 
up  of  the  body  depends.  If  these  membranes  are 
rendered  too  porous,  and  let  out  the  colloidal  fluids 
of  the  blood — the  albumen  for  example — the  body 
so  circumstanced  dies ;  dies  as  if  it  were  slowly 
bled  to  death.  If,-  on  the  contrary,  they  become 
condensed  or  thickened,  or  loaded  with  foreign 
material,  then  they  fail  to  allow  the  natural  fluids 
to  pass  through  them.  They  fail  to  dialyse,  and 
the  result  is,  either  an  accumulation  of  the  fluid  in 
a  closed  cavky,  or  contraction  of  the  substance 


152  On  Alcohol. 

enclosed  within  the  membrane,  or  dryness  of  mem. 
brane  in  surfaces  that  ought  to  be*freely  lubricated 
and  kept  apart.  In  old  age  we  see  the  effects  of 
modification  of  membrane  naturally  induced ;  we 
see  the  fixed  joint,  the  shrunken  and  feeble  muscle, 
the  dimmed  eye,  the  deaf  ear,  the  enfeebled  nervous 
function. 

It  may  possibly  seem  at  first  sight  that  I  am 
leading  immediately  away  from  the  subject  of  the 
secondary  action  of  alcohol.  It  is  not  so.  I  am 
leading  directly  to  it.  Upon  all  these  membranous 
structures  alcohol  exerts  a  direct  perversion  of 
action.  It  produces  in  them  a  thickening,  a  shrink- 
ing, an'd  an  inactivity  that  reduces  their  functional 
power.  That  they  may  work  rapidly  and  equally 
they  require  to  be  at  all  times  charged  with  water  to 
saturation.  If  into  contact  with  them  any  agent 
is  brought  that  deprives  them  of  water,  then  is  their 
work  interfered  with ;  they  cease  to  separate  the 
saline  constituents  properly,  and,  if  the  evil  that  is 
thus  started  be  allowed  to  continue,  they  contract 
upon  their  contained  matter  in  whatever  organ  it 
may  be  situated,  and  condense  it. 

In  brief,  under  the  prolonged  influence  of  alco- 
hol those  changes  which  take  place  from  it  in  the 
blood  corpuscles,  and  which  have  already  been 
described,  extend  to  the  other  organic  parts,  in- 
volving them  in  structural  deteriorations,  which 
are  always  dangerous,  and  are  often  ultimately 
fetal. 

PRIMARY  EFFECTS  ON* VITAL  FUNCTIONS. 

I  remarked  in  my  last  lecture  that  the  slow  or 


Effects  on  Vital  Functions.  153 

chronic  effect  of  alcoholic  drink  upon  the  body 
was  to  induce  a  series  of  stages  analogous  in  all 
respects,  except  in  period  of  duration,  to  the  process 
of  acute  poisoning  by  the  same  agent.  In  the  first 
prolonged  stage  there  occur  phenomena  of  disease 
which  are  as  characteristic  of  the  agency,  when  it 
is  known,  as  they  are  deceptive  when  the  agency 
is  not  known. 

The  ultimate  changes  that  follow  the  use  of  alco- 
hol by  those  who  indulge  in  it,  in  what  is  too  often 
considered  a  temperate  degree,  are  actual  local 
changes  within  one  or  other  of  the  vital  organs. 
But  before  such  actual  deterioration  obtains  there 
are  usually  other  phenomena  transitory  in  character 
yet  unequivocal.  I  pointed  out  certain  of  these  in 
the  last  lecture,  but  I  did  not  specify  them  all. 

In  addition  to  that  irritation  of  mind  and  suffer- 
ing "  of  wounds  without  cause,"  to  which  I  then 
drew  attention,  an  extreme  emotional  derangement 
is  often  produced.  The  afflicted  man — and  I  fear 
I  must  say  woman  also,  for  women  are  sometimes 
afflicted — the  afflicted  man  under  this  primary 
prolonged  influence  of  alcohol  becomes  nervous 
and  excitable,  ready  at  any  moment  to  cry  or  to 
laugh,  without  valid  reasons  for  either  act.  The 
emotional  centres  are  alternately  raised  and  de- 
pressed in  function  by  the  poison,  but  after  a  time 
the  depression  overcomes  the  exhilaration,  and  the 
impulse  is  to  a  maudlin  sentimentality  extending 
even  to  tears.  The  slightest  anxieties  are  then  ex- 
aggerated, and  there  is  experienced  at  the  same 
time  an  indecision  and  deficiency  of  self-confidence 
which  is  doubly  perplexing.  When  an  act  is  done 


154  On  Alcohol. 

when  a  letter,  for  instance,  or  other  piece  of  business 
has  been  finished  and  despatched,  an  uneasy  feeling 
of  distrust  is  felt  that  perhaps  some  mistake  has 
been  made,  which  distrust  passes  rapidly  into  a 
sentiment  that  the  thing  cannot  be  helped ;  it  is 
bad  luck,  but  it  must  take  its  chance.  In  various 
other  directions  this  distrust  shows  itself,  and  the 
worst  of  all  is,  that  the  very  doubt  prompts  the 
desire  for  another  application  for  relief  to  the  evil 
that  is  the  cause  of  the  burthen.  A  small  dram 
more  of  the  stimulant,  not  an  overpowering  draught 
that  will  cause  quick  and  sure  insensibility,  but  just 
a  mouthful,  that  is  the  assumed  remedy,  and  that 
is  the  certain  promoter  of  the  sorrow. 

We  know  now,  as  surely  as  if  we  could  see  with- 
in the  body,  what  is  the  condition  of  the  organs  of 
the  person  afflicted  in  the  manner  thus  denned. 
We  are  conscious  that  the  vessels  of  the  brain,  of 
the  lungs,  of  the*  liver,  of  the  kidneys,  of  the  stomach 
are  paralysed,  and  are  injected  to  full  distention 
with  blood.  Some  of  these  parts  have  actually 
been  seen  under  this  state,  and  the  fact  of  the  red 
injected  condition  directly  demonstrated. 

Alcoholic  Dyspepsia. 

Of  all  the  systems  of  organs  that  suffer  under 
this  sustained  excitement  and  paralysis,  two  are 
injured  most  determinately,  viz.,  the  digestive  and 
the  nervous.  The  stomach,  unable  to  produce  in 
proper  quantity  the  natural  digestive  fluid,  and 
also  unable  to  absorb  the  food  which  it  may  im- 
perfectly digest,  is  in  constant  anxiety  and  irrita- 
tion. It  is  oppressed  with  the  sense  of  nausea ;  it 


Nervous  Derangements.  155 

is  oppressed  with  the  sense  of  emptiness  and  pros- 
tration  ;  it  is  oppressed  with  a  sense  of  distention  ; 
it  is  oppressed  with  a  loathing  for  food,  and  it  is 
teased  with  a  craving  for  more  drink.  Thus  there 
is  engendered  a  permanent  disorder  which,  for 
politeness'  sake,  is  called  dyspepsia,  and  for  which 
different  remedies  are  often  sought  but  never  found. 
Antibilious  pills — whatever  they  may  mean — Seid- 
litz  powders,  effervescing  waters,  and  all  that  phar- 
macopoeia of  aids  to  further  indigestion,  in  which 
the  afflicted  who  nurse  their  own  diseases  so  liber- 
ally and  innocently  indulge,  are  tried  in  vain.  I  do 
not  strain  a  syllable  when  I  state  that  the  worst 
forms  of  confirmed  indigestion  originate  in  the 
practice  that  is  here  explained.  By  this  practice 
all  the  functions  are  vitiated,  the  skin  at  one  mo- 
ment is  flushed  and  perspiring,  at  the  next  is  pale, 
cold,  and  clammy,  and  every  other  secreting  struc- 
ture is  equally  disarranged. 

Nervous  Derangements. 

The  nervous  structures  follow,  or  it  may  be  pre- 
cede, the  stomach  in  the  order  of  derangement. 
We  have  not  yet  traced  out  with  sufficient  care 
the  conditions  of  the  centres  of  the  organic  chain 
of  nerves,  but  we  know  that  they  are  reduced  in 
power  ;  and,  in  regard  to  those  higher  and  reason- 
ing centres,  the  brain  and  its  subsidiary  parts,  the 
spinal  cord  and  voluntary  nerves,  we  are  aware 
that  they  are  supplied  with  blood  through  vessels 
weakened,  and  in  a  condition  either  of  undue  ten- 
sion or  undue  relaxation.  Moreover,  the  delicate 
membranes  which  envelope  and  immediately  sur- 


156  On  Alcohol. 

round  the  nervous  cords  are  acted  upon  more 
readily  by  the  alcohol  than  the  coarser  membra- 
nous textures  of  other  parts,  and  thus  a  combined 
arrangement  of  evils  afreets  the  nervous  matter. 
The  perverted  condition  of  the  nervous  Centres 
gives  rise  to  many  striking  phenomena,  extending 
from  them  to  the  nervous  cords  and  to  the  organs 
of  sense.  The  irregular  supply  of  blood  to  the 
retina  causes  temporary  disturbances  of  vision, 
with  appearances  before  the  eyes  of  those  specks 
and  small  rounded  semi-transparent  discs,  which 
are  called  by  the  learned  muscce  volitantes.  From 
the  imperfect  tension  of  the  arteries,  the  blood 
which  rushes  through  them  causes  their  dilatation, 
and  in  the  bony  canals  of  the  skull  an  impingement 
is  made  upon  the  bony  structure.  Vibrations 
which  extend  to  the  neighboring  organs  of  hear- 
ing are  thus  produced,  giving  rise  to  sounds  of  a 
murmuring,  ringing,  or  humming  character,  ac- 
cording to  the  modification  of  the  arterial  ten- 
sion. 

The  perverted  condition  of  the  membranous 
covering  of  the  nerves  gives  rise  to  pressure  within 
the  sheath  of  the  nerve,  and  to  pain  as  a  conse- 
quence. To  the  pain  thus  excited  the  term  neu- 
ralgia is  commonly  applied,  or  tic  ;  or  if  the  large 
nerve  running  down  the  thigh  be  the  seat  of  the 
pain,  "  sciatica."  Sometimes  this  pain  is  devel- 
oped as  a  tooth-ache.  It  is  pain  commencing  in 
nearly  every  instance  at  some  point  where  a  nerve 
is  enclosed  in  a  bony  cavity,  or  where  pressure  is 
easily  excited,  as  at  the  lower  jawbone  near  the 
centre  of  the  chin,  or  at  the  opening  in  front  of 


Alcoholic  Insomnia  or  Sleeplessness.         157 

the  lower  part  of  the  ear,  or  at  the  opening  over 
the  eyeball  in  the  frontal  bone. 

Alcoholic  Insomnia  or  Sleeplessness. 

Lastly  on  this  head,  the  perverted  state  of  the 
vessels  of  the  brain  itself,  the  unnatural  tension  to 
which  they  are  subjected  from  the  stroke  of  the 
heart  they  are  now  so  incompetent  to  resist,  sets 
up  in  the  end  one  telling,  and  of  all  I  have  yet 
named,  most  serious  phenomenon  ;  I  mean  insomnia 
— inability  to  partake  of  natural  sleep.  There  is  a 
theory  held  by  some  physiologists  that  sleep  is  in- 
duced by  the  natural  contraction  of  the  minute 
vessels  of  the  brain,  and  by  the  extrusion,  through 
that  contraction,  of  the  blood  from  the  brain.  I 
am  myself  inclined,  for  reasons  I  need  not  wait 
to  specify  now,  to  consider  this  theory  incorrect : 
but  it  is  nevertheless  true  that  during  natural  sleep 
the  brain  is  receiving  a  reduced  supply  of  blood  ; 
that  when  the  vessels  are  filled  with  blood  without 
extreme  distention,  the  brain  remains  awake,  and 
that  when  the  vessels  are  engorged  and  over- 
distended,  there  is  induced  an  insensibility  which 
is  not  natural  sleep,  but  which  partakes  of  the 
nature  of  apoplexy.  This  sleep  is  attended  with 
long  and  embarrassed  breathing,  blowing  expira- 
tions, deep  snoring  inspirations,  and  uneasy  move- 
ments of  the  body,  even  with  convulsive  motions. 
From  such  sleep  the  apparent  sleeper  awakes  un- 
refreshed  and  unready  for  the  labors  of  the  day. 
The  effect  of  alcohol  then  on  the  brain  is  to  main- 
tain the  relaxation  of  vessels,  to  keep  the  braid 


158  On  Alcohol. 

charged  with  blood,  and  so  to  hold  back  the  natu- 
ral repose.  Under  this  form  of  divergence  from 
the  natural  life,  the  sleepless  man  lies  struggling 
with  unruly  and  unconnected  trains  of  thought. 
He  tries  to  force  sleep  by  suppressing  with  a  great 
effort  all  thought,  but  in  an  instant  wakes  again. 
At  last  the  more  he  tries  the  less  he  succeeds,  until 
the  morning  dawns.  By  that  long  time  the  spirit 
that  kept  his  cerebral  vessels  disabled  and  his 
heart  in  wild  unrest  having  become  eliminated,  he 
is  set  free,  and  the  coveted  sleep  follows.  Or  per- 
haps, wearied  of  waiting  for  the  normal  results,  he 
rises,  and  with  an  additional  dose  of  the  great  dis- 
turber, or  with  some  other  tempting  narcotic  drug 
of  kindred  nature,  such  as  chloral,  he  so  intensifies 
the  vascular  paralysis  as  to  plunge  himself  into  the 
oblivion  of  congestion,  with  those  attendant  apo- 
plectic phenomena,  which  he  himself  hears  not, 
but  which,  to  those  who  do  hear,  are  alarming 
in  what  they  forebode,  when  their  full  meaning  is 
appreciated.  Connected  with  this  sleep  there  is 
engendered  in  some  persons  a  form  of  true  epi- 
lepsy, which  all  the  skill  of  physic  is  hopeless  to 
cure,  until  the  cause  is  revealed  and  removed. 

And  now  I  think  I  have  said  everything  that  I 
have  time  to  say  respecting  the  general  phe- 
nomena incident  to  this  primary  stage  of  slow 
alcoholic  intoxication  in  those  who,  in  the  world's 
eye,  as  well  as  in  their  own,  are  temperate  indi- 
viduals— individuals  who  enjoy  the  choice  things 
of  this  life  heartily ;  who  understand  a  glass  of 
wine,  and  who  can  take  a  good  many  glasses — or 
a  good  many  little  "  goes  "  of  spirit  if  that  be  all 


Organic  Deteriorations.  159 

—but  who  are  never  known  by  friend  or  foe  to 
be  worse  for  anything  they  take  ;  who  grow  mel- 
low as  an  apple  under  the  mellowing  cheer,  but 
never  fall,  nor  lose  their  power  of  taking  less 
guarded  companions  safely  home. 

ORGANIC  DETERIORATIONS. 

The  continuance  of  the  effects  of  alcohol  into  a 
more  advanced  stage  leads  to  direct  disorganisation 
of  vital  structures.  When  once  this  stage  has  been 
reached  not  one  organ  of  the  body  escapes  the 
ravage.  According  to  the  build  or  the  hereditary 
construction  of  the  individual,  however,  or  accord- 
ing sometimes  to  what  may  be  considered  as  a  lo- 
cal accident,  some  particular  organ  undergoes  a 
change  which  gives  a  specific  character  to  the 
whole  of  the  phenomena  that  are  afterwards  pre- 
sented. We  then  say  of  the  person  in  whom  such 
change  occurs  that  he  is  afflicted  with  such  a  par- 
ticular disease,  letting  the  general  sink  into  the  lo- 
cal manifestation.  Many  purely  local  modifica- 
tions of  structures  and  parts  are  in  this  manner  in- 
duced in  the  blood,  in  the  minute  structure  of  the 
moving  organs — the  muscles,  in  the  fixed  vital  or- 
gans, such  as  the  brain,  the  lungs,  the  liver,  the  heart, 
the  kidneys.  In  the  blood  the  influence  is  exerted 
upon  the  plastic  fibrine  and  upon  the  corpuscles ; 
in  the  brain,  on  the  membranes  at  first,  and  after- 
wards on  the  nervous  matter  they  enclose ;  in  the 
lungs,  on  the  elastic,  spongy,  connective  tissue, 
which  is,  strictly  speaking,  also  membranous  ;  in 
the  heart,  on  its  muscular  elements  and  mem- 
branes :  in  the  liver,  primarily  on  its  membranes ; 


160  On  Alcohol. 

in   the   kidneys,  on  their  connec'.ive   tissues  and 
membranes. 

SPECIAL    STRUCTURAL  DETERIORATIONS. 

The  organ,  of  the  body  that  perhaps  the  most 
frequently  undergoes  structural  changes  from  alco- 
hol is  the  liver.  The  capacity  of  this  organ  for 
holding  active  substances  in  its  cellular  parts  is  one 
of  its  marked  physiological  distinctions.  In  in- 
stances of  poisoning  by  arsenic,  antimony,  strych- 
nine, and  other  poisonous  compounds,  we  turn  to 
the  liver,  in  conducting  our  analyses,  as  if  it  were 
the  central  depot  of  the  foreign  matter.  It  is, 
practically,  the  same  in  respect  of  alcohol.  *  The 
liver  of  the  confirmed  alcoholic  is  probably  never 
free  from  the  influence  of  the  poison ;  it  is  too  often 
saturated  with  it. 

The  effect  of  the  alcohol  upon  the  liver  is  upon 
the  minute  membranous  or  capsular  structure  of 
the  organ,  upon  which  it  acts  to  prevent  the  proper 
dialysis  and  free  secretion.  The  organ  at  first  be- 
comes large  from  the  distention  of  its  vessels,  the 
surcharge  of  fluid  matter  and  the  thickening  of  tis- 
sue. After  a  time  there  follow  contraction  of 
membrane,  and  slow  shrinking  of  the  whole  mass 
of  the  organ  in  its  cellular  parts.  Then  the  shrunk- 
en, hardened,  roughened  mass  is  said  to  be  "  hob- 
nailed," a  common  but  expressive  term.  By  the 
time  this  change  occurs,  the  body  of  him  in  whom 
it  is  developed  is  usually  dropsical  in  its  lower 
parts,  owing  to  the  obstruction  offered  to  the  re- 
turning blood  by  the  veins,  and  his  fate  is  sealed. 

Now  and  then,  in  the  progress  to  this  extreme 


Special  Structural  Deteriorations.  161 

change  and  deterioration  of  tissue,  there  are  inter- 
mediate changes.  From  the  blood,  rendered  pre- 
ternaturally  fluid  by  the  alcohol,  there  may  tran- 
sude, through  the  investing  membrane,  plastic 
matter  which  may  remain,  interfering  with  natural 
function,  if  not  creating  active  mischief.  Again, 
under  an  increase  of  fatty  substance  in  the  body, 
the  structure  of  the  liver  may  be  charged  with 
fatty  cells,  and  undergo  what  is  technically  desig- 
nated fatty  degeneration.  I  touch  with  the  lightest 
hand  upon  these  deteriorations,  and  I  omit  many 
others.  My  object  is  gained  if  I  but  impress  you 
with  the  serious  nature  of  the  changes  that,  in  this 
one  organ  alone,  follow  an  excessive  use  of  alcohol. 

In  the  course  of  the  early  stages  of  deterioration 
of  function  of  the  liver  from  organic  change  of 
structure,  another  phenomenon,  leading  speedily 
to  a  fatal  termination,  is  sometimes  induced.  This 
new  malady  is  called  diabetes,  and  consists  in  the 
formation  in  enormous  quantity  within  the  body 
of  glucose  or  grape  sugar,  which  substance  has  to 
be  eliminated  by  dialysis,  through  the  kidneys — 
often  a  fatal  elimination.  The  injury  causing  this 
disease  through  the  action  of  alcohol  may  possibly 
be  traced  back  to  an  influence  upon  the  nervous 
matter  ;  but  the  appearance  of  the  phenomenon  is 
coincident  with  the  derangement  of  the  liver,  and  I 
therefore  refer  to  it  in  this  place. 

The  kidney,  in  like  manner  with  the  liver,  suffers 
deterioration  of  structure  from  the  continued  influ- 
ence of  alcoholic  spirit.  Its  minute  structure  under- 
goes fatty  modifications  ;  its  vessels  lose  their  due 
elasticity  and  power  of  contraction  ;  or  its  mem- 


1 62  On  Alcohol. 

branes  permit  to  pass  through  them  that  colloidal 
part  of  the  blood  which  is  known  as  albumen. 
This  last  condition  reached,  the  body  loses  power 
as  if  it  were  being  gradually  drained  even  of  its 
blood.  For  this  colloidal  albumen  is  the  primi- 
tively dissolved  fluid  out  of  which  all  the  other  tis- 
sues are,  by  dialytical  processes,  to  be  elaborated. 
In  its  natural  destination  it  has  to  pass  into  and 
constitute  every  colloidal  part. 

The  lungs  do  not  escape  the  evil  influence  that 
follows  the  persistent  use  of  alcohol.  They,  indeed, 
probably  suffer  more  than  we  at  present  know  from 
the  acute  evils  imposed  by  this  agent.  The  ves- 
sels of  the  lungs  are  easily  relaxed  by  alcohol ;  and 
as  they,  of  all  parts,  are  most  exposed  to  vicissi- 
tudes of  heat  and  cold,  they  are  readily  congested 
when,  paralysed  by  the  spirit,  they  are  subjected 
to  the  effects  of  a  sudden  fall  of  atmospheric  tem- 
perature. Thus,  the  suddenly  fatal  congestions  of 
lungs  which  so  easily  befall  the  confirmed  alcoholic 
during  severe  winter  seasons. 

Alcoholic  Phthisis  ;  or,  The  Consumption  of  Drunkards. 

There  are  yet  other  and  more  prolonged,  and 
more  certainly  fatal  mischiefs  induced  in  the  lungs 
by  the  persistent  resort  to  alcohol ;  and  to  one  of 
these  I  would  direct  special  attention.  It  is  that 
deterioration  of  lung  tissue  to  which,  in  the  year 
1864, 1  gave  originally  the  name  of  alcoholic  phthisis, 
or  the  consumption  of  drunkards.  The  facts  were 
elicited  at  first  in  this  manner.  In  a  public  hospi- 
tal to  which  I  acted  as  physician,  I  had  brought 
before  me,  in  the  course  of  many  years,  two  thou- 


Alcoholic  Phthisis.  163 

sand  persons  who  were  stricken  with  consumption. 
I  gathered  the  history  of  the  lives  of  these,  and  of 
the  reasons  why  they  had  passed  into  the  all  but 
hopeless  malady  from  which  they  suffered.  In  my 
analysis  of  these  histories  I  found  that  the  leading 
causes  of  the  malady  were,  in  the  great  majority 
of  instances,  predisposition  from  hereditary  taint ; 
exposure  to  impure  air ;  want ;  or  certain  other  al- 
lied causes.  But  the  analysis  being  conducted 
rigidly,  I  discovered  that,  when  every  individual 
instance  had  been  classified  as  due  to  the  causes 
stated  above,  there  remained  thirty-six  persons,  or 
nearly  two  per  cent.,  who  were  excluded  from 
them,  who  appeared  to  suffer  purely  from  the  ef- 
fects of  alcohol,  and  in  whom  the  consumption  had 
been  brought  into  existence  by  the  use  of  alcohol. 

The  added  observations  of  eleven  years,  since 
the  above  named  fact  was  recorded  in  the  Social 
Science  Review,  as  a  new  fact  in  the  history  of  the 
disease,  have  only  served  to  prove,  in  the  minds  of 
other  men  as  well  as  my  own,  the  truth  of  the  re- 
cord. 

The  persons  who  succumb  to  this  deterioration 
of  structure  induced  by  alcohol  are  not  the  ex- 
ceedingly young,  neither  are  they  the  old.  They 
are  usually  over  twenty-eight  and  under  fifty-five. 
The  average  age  may  be  taken  as  forty-eight. 
They  are  persons  of  whom  it  is  never  expected 
that  their  death  will  be  from  consumption  ;  and 
they  are  generally  males.  They  are  probably  con- 
sidered very  healthy ; — men  who  can  endure  any- 
thing, sit  up  late  at  night,  run  the  extreme  of 
amusements,  and  yet  get  through  a  large  amount 


164  On  Alcohol. 

of  business.  They  sleep  well,  eat  pretty  well,  and 
drink  very  well.  They  are  often  men  of  excellent 
build  of  body,  and  of  active  minds  and  habits. 
They  are  not  a  class  of  drinkers  of  strong  drinks 
who  sleep  long,  take  little  exercise,  and  grow 
heavy,  waxy,  pale — 

"  Sleek-headed  men  and  such  as  sleep  o'  nights." 

On  the  contrary,  they  take  moderate  rest,  and  sec 
as  much  as  they  can.  Neither  in  the  ordinary 
sense  are  they  drunkards :  they  may  never  have 
been  intoxicated  in  the  whole  course  of  their  lives; 
but  they  partake  freely  of  any  and  every  alcoholic 
drink  that  comes  in  their  way,  and  they  bear  alco- 
hol with  a  tolerance  that  is  remarkable  to  ob- 
servers. They  are  hard  drinkers  as  distinguished 
from  sots.  Beer  is  to  them  as  water,  wine  is  weak ; 
the  only  thing  that  upsets  them  is  stiff  grog  in  re- 
lays, or  a  mixture  of  spirituous  drinks  carried  to 
the  extent  of  what  they  call,  in  grim  joke — in  which 
death  surely  joins — "  piling  the  agony." 

As  a  rule  these  cannot  live  in  what  they  consider 
to  be  comfort  without  a  daily  excess  of  alcohol, 
which  excess  must  needs  be  renewed  on  emer- 
gencies, if  there  be  greater  amount  of  work  to  be 
done,  less  sleep  to  be  secured,  or  more  life  to  be 
lived. 

As  specimens  of  animal  build  these  persons  are 
often  models  of  organic  symmetry  and  power.  In 
fact  they  resist  the  enemy  they  court  for  so  long  a 
time  because  of  the  perfection  of  their  organisa- 
tion. More  than  half  of  those  whom  I  have  seen 
stricken  down  with  alcoholic  phthisis  have  said 


Alcoholic  Phthisis.  165 

that  they  had  never  had  a  day's  illness  in  their  lives 
before ;  but  questioned  closely  it  was  found  that 
none  of  them  had  actually  been  quite  well.  Some 
of  them  had  suffered  from  gout ;  others  from  rheu- 
matism or  neuralgia.  They  had  felt  severely  any 
depression  such  as  that  which  arises  from  ^  cold, 
and  if  they  had  been  subjected  suddenly  to  causes 
of  excitement  or  exhaustion,  they  had  detected, 
without  actually  realising  its  full  meaning,  that 
their  balance  of  power  against  weakness  was  re- 
duced, that  the  end  of  the  beam  called  strength 
was  rising,  and  that  an  extra  quantity  of  alcohol 
was  required  to  bring  back  equilibrium.  As  a  rule 
men  of  this  class  are  thoughtless  of  their  own 
health  and  their  own  prospects,  for  they  have  an 
abundant  original  store  of  energy.  They  are  de- 
signated as  "  happy-go-lucky  "  men,  or  as  men  who 
"  always  fall  on  their  feet,"  which  truly  they  do, 
but  not  without  injury. 

The  countenance  of  the  alcoholic  consumptive 
differs  from  that  which  is  usually  considered  the 
countenance  of  the  consumptive  person,  and 
equally  from  that  which  all  the  world  adjudges  as 
belonging  to  the  man  who  indulges  freely  in  strong 
drink.  Who  does  not  remember  the  wan,  pale, 
sunken  cheek  of  the  youth  on  whom  ordinary  con- 
sumption has  set  its  mark  ?  And  who,  again,  does 
not  recall  the  fades  alcoJiolica — the  blotched  skin, 
the  purple-red  nose,  the  dull,  protruding  eye,  the 
vacant  stare  of  the  confirmed  sot?  The  alcoholic 
consumptive  has  none  of  these  characteristics. 
His  face  is  the  best  part  of  him  in  all  his  history. 
When  his  muscles  have  lost  their  power,  and  his 


1 66  On  Alcohol. 

clothes  hang  loosely  on  his  shrunken  limbs,  he  is 
still  of  fair  proportion  in  the  face  ;  he  has  little  pal- 
lor, and  he  is  expressive  in  feature,  so  that  his 
friends  are  apt  to  be  deceived  and  to  believe  that 
there  must  be  hope  for  his  recovery,  even  when 
he  is  beyond  every  hope.  I  remember  being  actu- 
ally taken  aback  on  one  occasion  on  finding,  in  a 
man  who  seemed,  from  his  £ace,  to  be  in  perfect 
health,  complete  destruction  of  his  lungs  from  the 
encroachments  of  disease  ;  and  I  cannot  be  sur- 
prised, therefore,  that  others,  less  informed,  .should 
share  in  such  an  imperception  of  danger  when  it 
is  close  at  hand.  Nobody,  in  a  word,  "  pities  the 
looks  "  of  these  sufferers,  and  good  eyes  are  neces- 
sary to  learn  that  pity  is  called  for. 

The  phenomena  are  not  always  developed  at  a 
time  when  the  sufferer  from  them  is  indulging- 
most  freely  in  alcohol.  On  the  contrary,  it  is  by  no 
means  uncommon  that  the  habit  of  excessive  indul 
gence  has  been  stopped  for  some  time  previously  to 
their  development.  The  reasons  assigned  by  the 
patients  for  abstinence  vary.  One  man  may  have 
been  strongly  advised  by  his  friends  to  desist,  or 
may  himself  have  undergone  a  certain  measure  of 
reform  ;  another  has  been  led  by  the  reading  or 
hearing  of  arguments  on  temperance ;  a  third,  by 
want  of  means  to  obtain  the  indulgence ;  but  by  far 
the  larger  number  tell  you  that  a  time  came  when 
the  desire  for  so  much  drink  did  not  occur  to  them. 
They  will  state  that  they  tried  the  round  of  the 
various  spirits,  but  found  that  none  agreed  with 
them  as  before,  so  that  at  last  they  were  driven  to 
I  oly  on  beer  as  the  only  drink  they  cared  for.  We 


.v>-: 


Alcoholic  Phthisis.  167 

read  all  this  off  clearly  enough  from  a  physiologi- 
cal point  of  view.  We  see  that,  in  fact,  the  body 
has  been  resisting  the  alcohol  ;  that  it  could  not 
do  away  with  it  as  it  did  when  all  the  excreting 
organs  were  in  their  full  prime;  and  that  those 
drinks  only  can  be  borne  in  which  the  amount  of 
alcohol  is  least.  But  the  sufferer  does  not  com- 
prehend the  fact,  and  therefore  he  not  ^infrequently 
concludes  that  his  increasing  languor  and  debility 
are  due  to  the  necessary  withdrawal  of  the  stimu- 
lus on  which  he  seems  to  have  been  actually  feed- 
ing during  the  greater  part  of  his  life. 

The  signs  which  first  indicate  failure  of  health 
are  usually  those  of  acute  pleurisy.  There  ispai© 
in  the  side,  quick,  sharp,  starting.  The  t 
"  stitch  "  in  the  side  is  commonly  applied  to 
pain,  and  is  expressive  enough.  After  a  time  the 
pain  becomes  continuous,  and  when  it  subsides, 
suppressed  breathing,  or  difficulty  of  filling  the. 
chest,  is  at  once  felt  and  recognised.  This  diffi- 
culty is  due  to  the  circumstance  that  a  portion  of 
lung  has  become  adherent  to  the  inner  surface  of 
the  chest.  The  next  sign  indicating  that  the 
disease  (consumption)  is  present,  is.  usually,  vomit- 
ing of  blood.  In  two-thirds  of  the  examples  to 
which  my  attention  has  been  directed  this  has 
been  the  sign  that  has  first  caused  serious  alarm, 
and  it  is  commonly  on  such  event  that  the  physi- 
cian is  called  in,  who  examines  the  chest  with  the 
stethoscope,  and  finds  too  often  a  condition  that 
is  hopeless.  From  the  appearance  of  that  sign 
all  is  —  down,  down,  down  towards  the  grave. 

There  is  no  form  of  consumption  so  fatal  as  that 


168  On  Alcohol. 

from  alcohol.  Medicines  affect  the  disease  very 
little,  the  most  judicious  diet  fails,  and  change  of 
air  accomplishes  but  slight  real  good.  The  sick 
mini  with  this  consumption  may  linger  longer  on 
the  highway  to  dissolution  than  does  his  younger 
companion,  but  there  is  this  difference  between 
them,  that  the  younger  companion  may  possibly 
find  a  by-path  to  comparative  health,  while  the 
other  never  leaves  it,  but  struggles  on  straight  to 
the  fatal  end.  In  plain  terms,  there  is  no  remedy 
for  alcoholic  phthisis.  It  may  be  de- 
its  course,  but  it  is  never  cured,  and  not 
unfrequently  instead  of  being  delayed  it  runs  on  to 
a  final  termination  more  rapidly  than  is  common 
in  any  other  type  of  the  disorder. 

The  origin  of  this  series  of  changes  from  alcohol 
is  again  from  the  membranes.  The  course  of  it  is 
through  the  membranous  tissues.  The  vessels 
give  way  after  a  severe  congestive  condition,  and 
blood  is  exuded,  or  extravasated  into  the  lung. 
These  conditions  lead  to  the  destruction  of  the 
substance  of  the  pulmonary  organs,  upon  which, 
and  upon  the  organic  changes  that  follow  such 
destruction,  the  acute  symptoms  of  the  malady 
under  consideration,  become  quickly  and  fatally 
pronounced. 

Alcoholic  Disease  of  the  Heart. 

The  heart,  not  less  than  the  rest  of  the  vital 
parts,  is  subjected  to  deterioration  of  structure 
from  alcohol.  We  need  not  wonder  at  this  when 
we  recall  the  strain  to  which  it  is  subjected  by  the 


Alcoholic  Disease  of  the  Heart.  169 

agent,  the  excess  of  work  it  is  made  to  perform. 
I  touched  on  the  mechanical  evils  that  befall  the 
heart  from  these  circumstances  in  my  last  lecture, 
and  the  structural  evils  which  I  have  now  to  spe- 
cify are  not  less  grave.  The  membranous  struc- 
tures which  envelope  and  line  the  organ  are 
changed  in  quality,  are  thickened,  rendered  carti- 
laginous, and  even  calcareous  or  bony.  Then  the 
valves,  which  are  made  up  of  folds  of  membrane, 
lose  their  suppleness,  and  what  is  called  valvular 
disease  is  permanently  established.  The  coats  of 
the  great  blood-vessel  leading  from  the  heart,  the 
aorta,  share,  not  unfrequently,  in  the  same  changes 
of  structure,  so  that  the  vessel  loses  its  elasticity 
and  its  power  to  feed  the  heart  by  the  recoil  from 
its  distention,  after  the  heart,  by  its  stroke,  has 
filled  it  with  blood. 

Again,  the  muscular  structure  of  the  heart  fails, 
owing  to  degenerative  changes  in  its  tissue.  The 
elements  of  the  muscular  fibre  are  replaced  by  fatty 
cells ;  or  if  not  so  replaced  are  themselves  trans- 
ferred into  a  modified  muscular  texture  in  which 
the  power  of  contraction  is  greatly  reduced. 

Those  who  suffer  from  these  organic  deteriora- 
tions of  the  central  and  governing  organ  of  the 
circulation  of  the  blood  learn  the  fact  so  insidi- 
ously, it  hardly  breaks  upon  them  until  the  mischief 
is  far  advanced.  They  are,  for  years,  conscious  of 
a  central  failure  of  power  from  slight  causes,  such 
as  over-exertion,  trouble,  broken  rest,  or  too  long 
abstinence  from  food.  They  feel  what  they  call  a 
"  sinking,"  but  they  know  that  wine  or  some  other 
Stimulant  will  at  once  relieve  the  sensation.  Thui 


170  On  Alcohol, 

they  seek  to  relieve  it  until  at  last  they  discover  that 
the  remedy  fails.  The  jaded,  over-worked,  faithful 
heart  will  bear  no  more ;  it  has  run  its  course,  and, 
the  governor  of  the  blood  stream  broken,  the  cur- 
rent either  overflows  into  the  tissues,  gradually 
damming  up  the  courses,  or  under  some  slight 
shock  or  excess  of  motion  ceases  at  the  centre. 


Other  Organic  Changes. 

In  the  eyeball  certain  colloidal  changes  take 
place  from  the  influence  of  alcohol,  the  extent  of 
which  have  as  yet  been  hardly  thought  of,  cer- 
tainly not  in  any  degree  studied,  as  in  future  they 
will  be.  We  have  learned  of  late  years  that  the 
crystalline  lens,  the  great  refracting  medium  of  the 
eyeball,  may,  like  other  colloids,  be  rendered  dense 
and  opaque,  by  processes  which  disturb  the  rela- 
tionship of  the  colloidal  substance  and  its  water. 
By  this  means  even  the  lens  of  the  living  eye  can 
be  rendered  opaque,  and  the  disease  called  cataract 
can  be  artificially  produced.  Sugar  and  many  salts 
in  excess,  in  the  blood,  will  lead  to  this  perversion 
of  structure,  and  after  a  long  time  alcohol  acting 
in  the  manner  of  salt  is  capable,  in  excess,  of  caus- 
ing the  same  modification  of  the  eyeball.  More- 
over, alcohol  injures  the  delicate  nervous  expanse 
upon  which  the  image  of  all  objects  we  look  at  is 
first  impressed.  It  interferes  with  the  vascular 
supply  of  this  surface,  and  it  leads  to  changes  of 
structure  which  are  indirectly  destructive  to  the 
perfect  sense  of  sight. 

In  yet  another  mode  alcohol  perverts  the  animaJ 


Other  Organic  Changes.  171 

mechanism.  By  some  as  yet  obscurely  definable 
interference  with  the  natural  transmutation  of  the 
colloidal  substances  into  saline  or  crystalloidal,  it 
gives  rise  to  the  production  of  an  excess  of  some 
salines  which  appear  in  the  fluid  renal  secretion. 
These  saline  matters  accumulated  in  the  blood 
from  inability  of  the  excreting  organs  to  dispose 
of  them,  are  directly  injurious,  and  exist  as  pos- 
sible causes  for  the  promotion  of  cataractous 
changes  in  the  crystalline  lens  and  of  varied 
changes  in  other  of  the  colloidal  tissues  and  mem- 
branes. They  are  also  the  cause  of  a  disease  local 
in  character  produced  by  the  aggregation  of  the 
saline  products,  particle  by  particle,  into  a  com- 
pact mass  like  a  stone,  or  to  what  is  technically 
called  calculus.  In  writing  the  history  of  one  of 
the  districts  of  England  in  which  this  disease  is 
very  prevalent,  I  expressed  many  years  ago  the 
view  that  alcoholic  indulgence  was  one  of  the 
most  telling  agencies  in  the  production  of  the  ma- 
lady. I  have  seen  nothing  since  that  would  lead 
me  to  alter  that  statement. 

Organic  Nervous  Lesions  from  Alcohol. 

Lastly,  the  brain  and  spinal  cord,  and  all  the 
nervous  matter  become,  under  the  influence  of 
alcohol,  subject,  like  other  parts,  to  organic  deteri- 
oration. The  membranes  enveloping  the  nervous 
substance  undergo  thickening;  the  blood-vessels 
are  subjected  to  change  of  structure,  by  which  their 
resistance  and  resiliency  is  impaired ;  and  the 
true  nervous  matter  is  sometimes  modified,  by  soft- 


lj2  On  Alcohol. 

ening  or  shrinking  of  its  texture,  by  degeneration 
of  its  cellular  structure,  or  by  interposition  of  fatty 
particles. 

These  deteriorations  of  cerebral  and  spinal  mat- 
ter give  rise  to  a  series  of  derangements,  which 
show  themselves  in  the  worst  forms  of  nervous 
disease — epilepsy ;  paralysis,  local  or  general ;  in- 
sanity. 

But  not  a  single  serious  nervous  lesion  from  al- 
cohol appears  without  its  warning.  As  a  man  who, 
when  drinking  at  the  table,  is  warned,  by  certain 
unmistakable  indications,  that  the  wine  is  begin- 
ning to  take  decisive  effect  on  his  power  of  ex- 
pression and  motion,  so  the  slow  alcoholic  is  duly 
apprised  that  he  is  in  danger  of  a  more  permanent 
derangement.  He  is  occasionally  conscious  of  a 
failing  power  of  speech  ;  in  writing  or  speaking  he 
loses  common  words.  He  is  aware  that  after 
fatigue  his  limbs  are  unnaturally  weary  and  heavy, 
.  and  he  is  specially  conscious  that  a  sudden  fall  of 
temperature  lowers  too  readily  his  vital  energies. 
The  worst  sign  of  impending  nervous  change  is 
muscular  instability,  irrespective  of  the  will ;  that 
is  to  say,  an  involuntary  muscular  movement  when- 
ever the  will  is  off  guard.  This  is  occasionally 
evidenced  by  sudden  muscular  starts  Avhich  pass 
almost  like  electrical  shocks  through  the  whole  of 
the  body  ;  but  it  is  more  frequently  and  determi- 
nately  shown  in  persistent  muscular  movements 
and  starts  at  the  time  of  going  to  sleep.  The  voli- 
tion then  is  resigned  to  the  overpowering  slumber, 
and  naturally  all  muscular  movement,  except  the 
movement  of  the  heart  and  of  the  breathing,  should 


Influence  on  Mental  Functions.  173 

rest  with  the  will.  But  now  this  beautiful  order  is 
disturbed.  In  the  motor  centres  of  the  nervous 
organisation  the  foreign  agent  is  creating  distur- 
bance of  function.  The  fact  is  communicated  to 
the  muscles  by  the  nervous  fibres,  and  the  active 
involuntary  start  of  the  lower  limbs  rouses  the 
sleeper  in  alarm.  Ignorant  of  the  import  of  these 
messages  of  danger,  the  habituated  alcoholic 
continues  too  frequently  his  way,  until  he  finds  the 
agitated  limbs  unsteady,  wanting  in  power  of  co- 
ordinated movement — paralysed. 

Deeply  interesting  as  these  phenomena  from  al- 
cohol are,  I  must  leave  them  here,  omitting  man}* 
others  equally  significant  and  equally  plain,  when 
they  are  once  pointed  out,  even  to  the  unprofessional 
mind.  Let  it  be  understood  that  in  each  descrip- 
tion I  have  recorded  only  what  alcohol  can  physi- 
cally do  to  the  animal  economy.  It  is  not  always 
the  cause  of  all  or  any  of  these  phenomena.  They 
may  be  induced  by  other  influences  and  other 
agents,  but  it  is  an  agency  capable  of  effecting  them, 
and  it  is  actively  employed  in  the  work. 


ON  SOME  OF    THE  MENTAL    PHENOMENA  INDUCED 
BY  ALCOHOL. 

The  purely  physical  action  of  alcohol  has  been 
GO  far  treated  upon  in  the  preceding  pages.  To 
that  must  now  be  added  a  few  sentences  on  the  in- 
fluence this  agent  exerts  over  the  mental  functions. 
Of  course  such  influence  is  actually  manifested  by 
and  through  physical  means,  but  as  yet  these  are 


On  Alcohol. 

not  sufficiently  clear  to  enable  us  to  trace  out  tjie 
mental  aberration  through  the  physical  process 
that  has  led  to  it.  It  is  better  therefore  and  sim- 
pler to  treat  the  present  subject  in  the  mere  ab- 
stract, passing  from  the  agent  to  its  results,  with- 
out reference  to  the  intermediate  line  of  connec- 
tion between  cause  and  effect.  These  mental 
phenomena  in  the  chronic  phase,  correspond  to  the 
phenomena  which  belong  to  the  second  and  third 
stages  of  acute  alcoholic  intoxication. 


Loss  of  Memory  or  Speech. 

One  of  the  first  effects  of  alcohol  upon  the  ner- 
vous system  in  the  way  of  alienation  from  the  nat- 
ural mental  state,  is  shown  in  loss  of  memory. 

This  extends  even  to  forgetfulness  of  the  com- 
monest of  things ;  to  names  of  familiar  persons,  to 
dates,  to  duties  of  daily  life.  Strangely  too,  this 
failure,  like  that  which  indicates,  in  the  aged,  the 
era  of  second  childishness  and  mere  oblivion,  does 
not  extend  to  the  things  of  the  past,  but  is  confined 
to  events  that  are  passing.  On  old  memories  the 
mind  retains  its  power ;  on  new  ones  it  requires 
constant  prompting  and  sustainment. 

If  this  failure  of  mental  power  progress,  it  is  fol- 
lowed usually  with  loss  of  volitional  power.  The 
muscles  remain  ready  to  act,  but  the  mind  is  inca- 
pable of  stirring  them  into  action.  The  speech 
fails  at  first,  not  because  the  mechanism  of  speech 
is  deficient,  but  because  the  cerebral  power  is  in- 
sufficient to  call  it  forth  to  action.  The  man  is  re- 


Influence  on  Mental  Functions.  175 

due  ed  to  the  condition  of  the  dumb  animal.  Aris- 
totle sa}rs,  grandly,  animals  have  a  voice ;  man 
speaks.  In  this  case  the  voice  remains,  the  speech 
is  lost ;  the  man  sinks  to  the  lower  spheres  of  the 
living  creation,  over  which  he  was  born  to  rule. 

The  failure  of  speech  indicates  the  descent  still 
deeper  to  that  condition  of  general  paralysis  in 
which  all  the  higher  faculties  of  mind  and  will  are 
powerless,  and  in  which  nothing  remains  to  show 
the  continuance  of  life  except  the  parts  that  remain 
under  the  dominion  of  the  chain  of  organic  or  vege- 
table nervous  matter.  Our  asylums  for  the  insane 
are  charged  with  these  helpless  specimens  of  hu- 
manity. The  membranes  of  the  nervous  centres 
of  thought  and  volition  have  lost,  in  these,  the  dia- 
lysing  function.  In  some  instances,  though  less 
frequently  than  might  be  supposed,  the  nervous 
matter  itself  is  modified,  visibly,  in  texture.  The 
result  is  the  complete  wreck  of  the  nervous  me- 
chanism, the  utter  helplessness  of  will,  the  absolute 
dependence  upon  other  hands  for  the  very  food 
that  has  to  be  borne  to  the  mouth.  The  picture  is 
one  of  breathing  death ;  of  final  and  perpetual  dead 
intoxication. 

Dipsomania. 

A  second  effect  of  alcohol  on  the  mental  organi- 
sation is  the  production  of  that  craving  for  its  in- 
cessant supply  to  which  we  give  the  name  of  dip- 
somania. In  those  who  are  affected  with  this  form 
of  alcoholic  disease,  a  mixed  madness  and  insanity 
is  established,  in  which  the  cunning  of  the  mind 


176  On  Alcohol. 

alone  lives  actively,  with  the  vices  that  ally  them- 
selves to  it.  The  arrest  of  nervous  function  is  par- 
tial, and  does  not  extend  to  the  motor  centres  so 
determinately  as  to  those  of  the  higher  reasoning 
faculties.  But  the  end,  though  it  may  be  slow,  is 
certain,  and  the  end  is,  as  a  rule,  that  general  pa- 
ralysis which  I  have  just  described.  The  dipso- 
maniac is,  however,  capable  of  recovery,  within 
certain  limits,  dn  one  and  only  one  condition,  that 
the  cause  of  his  disease  be  totally  withheld* 


.   Mania  a  Potu. 

The  effect  of  alcohol  on  the  mental  functions  is 
shown  in  yet  another  picture  of  modern  humanity 
writhing  under  its  use.  I  mean  in  the  form  of 
what  may  be  called  intermittent  indulgence  to 
dangerous  excess.  This  form  of  disease  has  been 
named  the  mania  a  potri,  and  it  is  one  of  the  most 
desperate  of  the  alcoholic  evils.  The  victims  of  this 
class  are  not  habitual  drunkards  or  topers,  but  at 
sudden  intervals  they  madden  themselves  with  the 
spirit ;  they  repent ;  reform ;  get  a  new  lease  of 
life ;  relapse.  In  intervals  of  repentance  they  are 
worn  with  remorse  and  regret ;  in  the  intervals  of 
madness  they  are  the  terrible  members  of  the  com- 
munity. In  their  furious  excitement  they  spread 
around  their  circle  the  darkness  of  desolation,  fear, 
and  despair.  Their  very  footsteps  carry  dread  to 
those  who,  most  helpless  and  innocent,  are  under 
their  fearful  control.  They  strike  their  dearest 
friends;  they  strike  themselves.  Retaining  suffi- 


Mania  a  Potu.  177 

cient  nervous  power  to  wield  their  limbs,  yet  not 
sufficient  to  guide  their  reason,  they  become  the 
dangerous  alcoholic  criminals  whom  our  legisla- 
tors, fearing  to  touch  the  cause  of  their  malady, 
would  fain  try  to  cure  by  scourge  and  chain. 

To  us  physiologists  these  "  maniacs  a  potu  "  are 
men  under  the  experiment  of  alcohol,  with  certain 
of  their  brain  centres  (which  I  could  fairly  define 
if  the  present  occasion  were  befitting)  paralysed, 
and  with  a  broken  balance,  therefore,  of  brain 
power,  which  we,  with  infinite  labor  and  much  ex- 
actitude, have  learned  to  understand.  Our  rem- 
edy for  such  aberration  of  nervous  function,  if  we 
were  legislators,  would  be  simple  enough.  We 
should  not  whip  the  maniac  back  again  to  the 
drink;  we  should  try  to  break  up  the  evil  by 
taking  the  drink  from  the  maniac.  But  then  we 
are  only  physiologists.  We  have  nothing  to  do 
with  that  £117,000,000  of  invested  capital,  and  we 
are  not  practical  in  reference  to  it. 


TRANSMITTED  DISEASE. 

The  most  solemn  fact  of  all  bearing  upon  these 
mental  aberrations  produced  by  alcohol,  and  upon 
the  physical  not  less  than  the  mental,  is,  that  the 
mischief  inflicted  on  man  by  his  own  act  and  deed 
cannot  fail  to  be  transferred  to  those  who  descend 
from  him,  and  who  are  thus  irresponsibly  afflicted. 
Amongst  the  many  inscrutable  designs  of  nature 
none  is  more  manifest  than  this,  that  physical  vice, 
like  physical  feature  and  physical  virtue,  descends 


1/8  On  Alcohol. 

in  line.  It  is,  I  say,  a  solemn  reflection  for  every 
man  and  every  woman,  tha-t  whatever  we  do  to 
ourselves  so  as  to  modify  our  own  physical  con- 
formation and  mental  type,  for  good  or  for  evil,  is 
transmitted  to  generations  that  have  yet  to  be. 

Not  one  of  the  transmitted  wrongs,  physical  or 
mental,  is  more  certainly  passed  on  to  those  yet 
unborn  than  the  wrongs  which  are  inflicted  by 
alcohol.  We,  therefore,  who  live  to  reform  the 
present  age  in  this  respect,  are  stretching  forth 
our  powers  to  the  next;  to  purify  it,  to  beautify  it, 
and  to  lead  it  toward  that  millennial  happiness  and 
blessedness,  which,  in  the  fulness  of  time,  shall  visit 
even  the  earth,  making  it,  under  an  increasing  light 
of  knowledge,  a  garden  of  human  delight,  a  Para- 
dise regained. 

SUMMARY. 

In  summary  of  what  has.  past,  I  may  be  brief- 
ness itself. 

This  chemical  substance,  alcohol,  an  artificial 
product  devised  by  man  for  his  purposes,  and  in 
many  things  that  lie  outside  his  organism  a  useful 
substance,  is  neither  a  food  nor  a  drink  suitable  for 
his  natural  demands.  Its  application  as  an  agent 
that  shall  enter  the  living  organization  is  properly 
limited  by  the  learning  and  skill  possessed  by  the 
physician — a  learning  that  itself  admits  of  being 
recast  and  revised  in  many  important  details,  and 
perhaps  in  principles. 

If  this  agent  do  really  for  the  moment  cheer  the 
weary  and  impart  a  flush  of  transient  pleasure  to 


Summary.  179 

the  unwearied  who  crave  for  mirth,  its  influence 
(doubtful  even  in  these  modest  and  moderate  de- 
grees) is  an  infinitesimal  advantage,  by  the  side  of 
an  infinity  of  ev;'l  for  which  there  is  no  coinpenf.«j> 
}  »o  human  cure. 


APPENDIX. 


I.   REFERENCES    TO    TABLES. 


TABLE  I. 


NAMES   OF  ANCIENT   ROMAN  WINES. 


I 

4 

6 

Falernum 

Vetus 

Cnidum 

Massicum 

Novum 

Adrium 

Setinum 

Recens 

Surrentinum 

Hornum 

7 

Trimum 

2 

Molle 

Mustum 

Chium 
Lesbium 

Lene 
Vetustate  edentulum 

Protropum 
Mulsum 

Leucadium 
Naxium 
Mamertinum 

Asperura 
Calenum 
Ccecubum 

Sapa 
Defrutum 
Carenum 

Thasium 

Albanum 

Moenium 

Meiuni 

8 

Mareoticura 

Fortius 

Passum 

5 

Passum  creticum 

3 

Coum 

Album 

Rhodium 

Nigrum 

Myndian 

9 

Rubrum 

Halicarnassum 

Murrhina 

181 

182 


Appendix. 
TABLE  II. 


WINES  OF  ITALY. 

Vesuvius. 
Vino  Greco 
Mangiaguerra 
Verracia 
Vino  Vergine 

Tuscany. 

Florence  (white  and  red) 
Monte  Pulciano 
Montalneo 
Porte  Hercole 

Lombardy. 

Modenese 

Montserrat 

Marcemino 

Brescian 

Veronese. 

Placentine 

Lumelline 

Pucine 

Naples. 

Campania  or  Pausilippo 

Muscatel 

Sr.rentine 

Salernitan 

Chiarello 

Caicassone 

Lachryma  Christ! 

Aibano 

Montefiascone 


Nomentan 
Monteran 

Velitrin 

Prcenetic 

II  Romanesca 

D'Orvieto 

Sicilian,  Sardinian,  and  Cor* 

sican. 
Catanean 
Panormitan 
Messinian 
Syracusan 

Genoa. 

Vino  di  Monte  Vernaccia 

Vino  Tinto 

Madeira 

WINES  OF  MADEIRA  AND  CA- 
NARIES ISLANDS. 

Madeira  Sec 
Canary  or  Palm  Sec 

WINES    OF    FRANCE  AND 
SWITZERLAND. 

Languedoc 

Picardy 

Champagne 

Burgundy 

Vino  Amabile,  or  Vino   di 

Cinque  Terre 
Vino  Razzese 
Muscadine 


Appendix. 
TABLE  II.— Continued. 


'83 


Rosatz 

WINES    OF    SPAIN    AND    POR- 

Vino Piccante 

TUGAL. 

Aland 

WINES  OF  GERMANY. 

Alicant 

Tyrolese  Tramin 

Sherry  (or  Xeres) 

Etsch 

Spanish  Malmsey 

Wine  of  Worms 

Tarragan 

Edinghof 

Salamanca 

Ambach 

Malaga 

Rhenish 

Cordova 

Mayne 

Galicia 

Moselle 

Andalusia 

Ncckar 

Vino  de  Toro 

Elsass 

Spanish 

Hock 

Vin  de  Beaune  (or  Partridge 

Bohemian 

eye) 

Silesian 

Cote  Roti 

Thuringian 

St.  Laurence 

Misnian 

Frontiniac 

Naumberg 

Muscat  de  Lion 

Brandenburg 

Cahors 

Hermitage 

WINES  OF  AUSTRIA  AND  HUN- 

Grave 

GARY. 

Vin  d'Haye 

Klosterneuberg 

Neufchatel 

Brosenberg 

Velteline 

Edenburg 

Lacote 

Tokay 

Reiff 

1 84 


Appendix. 


TABLE  III. 

TABLE  OF  THE  CONTENTS  OF  DIFFERENT  WINES  IN  A  QUAR1 
OF   EACH. 


Highly 
Rectified 
Spirit. 

Thick, 
Unctuous 
Resinous 
Matter. 

Gummy 
and  Tarta- 
rcous  Mat- 
ter. 

Water. 

oz.  dr.    gr. 

oz.  dr.    gr. 

oz.  dr.    gr. 

Ibs. 

oz.  dr.   gr. 

I    6      O 

T.    2      O 

1    5      ° 

2 

53      O 

Alicant    .... 

360 

O 

6    0    20 

0    I    40 

2 

o      w 
260 

Burgundy    .     .     . 

220 

04     o 

0    I    40 

2 

9  o  20 

Carcassone  .    .     . 

260 

o  4  10 

0    I    20 

2 

8  4  30 

Champagne      .     . 

2    5    20 

o  6  40 

010 

2 

830 

French    .... 

300 

o  6  40 

010 

2 

8  o  20 

Frontignac  .     .     . 

300 

34° 

o  5  20 

2 

4  6  30 

Vin  Grave    ... 

2    O       O 

060 

020 

2 

90     o 

Hermitage  .     .     . 

270 

120 

o  i  40 

2 

7  5  20 

Madeira  .... 

230 

320 

2    O       O 

2 

43° 

Malmsey      .     .     . 

400 

43° 

230 

2 

120 

Vino    di    Monte  ) 
Pulciano  .    .     j 

260 

030 

O    2    40 

2 

3    0    20 

Moselle   .... 

220 

o  4  20 

o  i  30 

2 

9  o  10 

Muscadine  .     .     . 

30     o 

240 

I    O       O 

2 

540 

Neufchatel  .    .     . 

320 

400 

i  7     o 

2 

2  7     c 

Palm  Sec      ... 

230 

240 

440 

2 

250 

Pontack  .... 

200 

o  5  20 

O    2    2O 

2 

9  o  40 

Old  Rhenish     .     . 

2    0       O 

100 

O    2    2O 

2 

8  5  40 

Rhenish  .... 

2    2       O 

o  3  20 

o  i  34 

2 

9  i     6 

Salamanca   .     .     . 

300 

340 

2    O       O 

2 

3  4     ° 

Sherry     .... 

3OO 

600 

220 

2 

060 

Spanish    .... 

120 

240 

940 

i 

10  5     a 

Vino  Tinto  .     .     . 

300 

640 

i  6     o 

'^ 

060 

Tokay  ..... 

220 

43° 

500 

2 

030 

Tyrol  Red  Wine    . 

I    4      0 

I    2       O 

040 

t 

860 

Red  Wine    .     .     . 

i  6     o 

o  4  40 

02     o 

2 

9  3  20 

White      .... 

200 

070 

030 

2 

700 

Appendix. 


185 


TABLE  IV. 


LIST    OF    SUBSTANCES    THAT    WILL   PRODUCE    ANAESTHETIC 
SLEEP. 

Heavy  carburetted  hydrogen 
gas  (plefiant  gas  or  ethy- 
lene) 


Nitrous  oxide  gas 
Carbonic  oxide  gas 
Carbonic  acid  gas 
Bisulphide  of  carbon 
Light  carburetted  hydrogen 


methyl 


or 


(hydride     of 
marsh  gas) 
Methylic  alcohol 
Methylic  ether  gas 
Chloride  of  methyl  gas 
Bichloride  of  methylene 
Terchloride  offormyl,  or  chlo- 
roform 
Tetra-chloride  of  carbon 


Ethylic  or  absolute  ether 

Chloride  of  ethyl 

Bichloride  of  ethylene  (Dutch 

liquid) 
Bromide  of  ethyl,  or  hydrobro- 

mic  ether 
Hydride  of  amyl 
Amylene   • 
Benzol 
Turpentine  spirit 


TABLE  V. 


ALCOHOLS. 


Methylic  or  Protylic  (wood  spirit) 
Ethylic  or  Deutylic  (common  alcohol) 
Propylic  or  Trilylic     .... 

Butylic  or  Tetrylic       .... 

Amylic  or  Pentylic  (potato  spirit,  fusel  oil) 
Hexylic       ...... 

Heptylic  or  (Enanthic         .        .       . . 

Octylic        ...... 

Decatylic -    . 

Cetylic        ...... 

. 

Melylic 


Elementary  Composition. 

.     C  H3   HO 

•     C,  H6   HO 

.     Cs  H7   HO 

.     C4  H9   HO 

CB  Hu  HO 

C0  H13  HO 

C7  H..HO 

C  H    HO 


C10H21HO 
C15H33HO 
C..  H..  HO 


186 


Appendix. 
TABLE  VI. 

RADICALS  OF  ALCOHOLS. 


Composition. 

CTT 
» 

C.     H. 


*  TT 

<-•         ni 

C,     H, 
CT     H, 

CTT 
Jtl, 


Old  name. 

Methyl 

Ethyl 

Propyl 

Butyl 

Amyl 

Hexyl 

Heptyl 

Octyl 

Decatyl 

Cetyl 

Melyl 


New  name. 

Protylen. 

Deutylen. 

Tritylen. 

Tetrylen. 

Pentylen. 

Hexylen. 

Heptylen. 

Octylen. 


TABLE  VII. 

ALCOHOLS. 


NAME. 

Chemical 
composition. 

Vapor 
density. 

Specific  gravity. 

Boiling 
point. 

Old. 

New. 

H,-t. 

V.'ater  1000. 

Cen. 

Fah. 

Methvlic 

Protvlic. 

C  H4    O 

16 

814  at  o"  C 

60 

140 

Ethvlic  . 

Dculylic 

C3  H.   0 

~3 

792      " 

,,o 
'/o 

172 

Butylic  . 

Tetrylic  . 

C4  HIt  0 

37 

803      « 

no 

230 

Amylic  . 

Pen  ty  lie 

C5  H13  0 

44 

Six      " 

132 

2JO 

Appendix. 
TABLE  VIII. 


187 


Alcohols. 

Aldehydes. 

Acids. 

Mylhylic  C    II4  O 
Ethylic  .  C,  H6  O 
Propylic  C3  'tis  O 
Butylic  .  Ct  HIOO 
Amylic  .  C»  HuO 

Formaldehyde    .  C  H3  O 
Aldehyde  '    .     .  C2  H,  O 
Propionaldchyde  C3  Hs  O 
Butylaldchyde    .  C4  Hs  O 
Valeraldehyde    .  C5  H10O 

Formic     .  C   IL.  Oa 
Acetic      .  Co  I14  Oa 
Proponic    C;;  Ho  Oj 
Butyric    .  C4  Ha  O3 
Valerianic  Co  H]0Oa 

TABLE  IX. 

ETHERS. 


NAME. 

Composition. 

Form. 

Boiling  point. 

Methyl  Ether      .     . 

C,    H,    0 

Gas 

Ethyl        "      .     .     . 

C     I-I      0 

Fluid 

94°  Fah. 

Propyl      "... 

C,    Hu  0 

" 

153°  Fah. 

Butyl        "... 

C,    HI§  0 

M 

219°  Fah. 

Amyl        "... 

C     H      O 

348°  Fah. 

TABLE  X. 

CHLORIDES. 


NAME. 

Chemical 
composition. 

Vapor 
density. 

Specific  gravity. 

Boiling 

point. 

Old. 

New. 

Ha-i. 

Water  1000. 

Cen. 

Fah. 

Methyl  . 

Protyl  . 

C  H,  Cl 

25 

Gas 

.  . 

.  . 

Ethyl     . 

Deutyl  . 

C,  H5  Cl 

32 

921  at  o"  C. 

II 

5  2 

Butyl     . 

Tetryl  . 

C4  H9  Cl 

46 

880       " 

70 

158 

Amyl     . 

Pentyl  . 

•C.  HnCl 

53 

IO2 

216 

183 


Appendix. 
TABLE  XI. 

IODIDES. 


NAME. 

Chemical 

Vapor 

Specific 

Boiling 

Per  cent 

composition. 

density. 

gravity. 

point. 

of  Iodine. 

Old. 

New. 

H3.=  i. 

Water  1000. 

Cen. 

Fah. 

Methvl 

Protyl 

C   H9  I 

71 

2240 

42 

1  08 

89.4 

Ethyl  . 

Deutyl 

C,H6  I 

78 

1946 

72 

162 

81.4 

Butyl  . 

Tetryl 

C4H,  I 

92 

1604 

I2O 

248 

69.0 

Amyl  . 

Pentyl 

C.HnI 

99 

'S" 

146 

295 

64.1 

TABLE  XII. 

NITRITES. 


NAME. 

Chemical 
composition. 

Vapor 
density. 

.  Specific 
gravity. 

Boiling 
point. 

Old. 

New. 

HJ-I. 

Water  1000. 

Cen. 

Fah. 

Methyl  . 

Protyl  . 

C   H3  N  O2 

3° 

.  . 

.  . 

.  . 

Ethyl     . 

Deutyl  . 

C,  H6  N  02 

37 

0.917 

18 

64 

Butyl     . 

Tetryl  . 

C4  H9  N  02 

Si 

.  . 

64 

147 

Amyl     . 

Pentyl  . 

C.HUN  02 

58 

0.877 

96 

205 

II.  REFERENCES  TO  WORDS  AND  DERI- 
VATIONS. 


While  the  delivery  of  these  Lectures  was  in  progress,  I 
received  from  John  F  Stanford,  Esq.,  M.A.,  F.R.S.,  a  phi- 
lological scholar,  whose  dictionary  of  Anglicised  foreign 
\vords  and  phrases  will,  it  is  to  be  hoped,  soon  appear — 
many  very  useful  and  interesting  notes  relating  to  deriva- 


Appendix. 

tions  of  words  and  terms  respecting  alcohol.  By  his  kind 
permission  I  add  a  few  of  his  notes  in  this  place. 

Alcohol. — The  best  Arabic  scholars  write  the  word  Al- 
Kool,  though  there  is  no  word  in  Arabic  which  corre- 
sponds to  the  meaning  assigned  to  it  in  the  English  lan- 
guage. 

Aqua  Vita. — -This  word,  Mr.  Stanford  reminds  me,  is 
used  by  Shakspeare. 

(Nurse.)  "  Give  me  some  aqua  vitaj." — Romeo  and  Juliet,  Act.  iil. 
sc.  2. 

"  I  would  as  soon  trust  an  Irishman  with  my  aqua  vita;  bottle." — Merry 
Wives  of  Windsor. 

Aqua  vitse  was,  Mr.  Stanford  believes,  made  before  any 
other  spirit,  viz.,  about  1260  A.D.,  by  the  monks  of  Ireland, 
who  got  the  secret  from  Spain,  the  Spaniards  having  got  it 
from  the  Moors,  and  the  Moors  (Arabs)  from  the  Chinese. 
Whisky,  he  thinks,  was  possibly  the  oldest  term  applied  to 
aqua  vitae.  The  etymon  is  usige-biatha,  which  in  Erse 
means  aqua  vitas,  corrupted  afterwards  to  usquebaugh. 
This  compound  term  shared  the  fate  of  many  other  words, 
and  was  abbreviated  to  usige,  whence  whisky. 

Arrac. — Hindustane  for  an  alcohol,  distilled  from  palm- 
tree  juice  and  several  other  juices  :  it  is  the  aqua  vita?  of 
the  East.  The  word  is  corrupted  to  Raki  in  Russia,  Tur- 
key, and  Germany,  or  sometimes  to  Rakk.  The  intoxi- 
cating liquor  made  from  the  juice  of  the  palm-tree  is  called 
in  India  and  Ceylon  Toddee,  whence  the  Scotch  term 
"  Toddy."  There  is  a  coarse  Arrac  called  Pariah  Arrac, 
very  generally  consumed  throughout  India,  which  is  ren- 
dered narcotic  by  addition  of  extract  of  Indian  hemp.  The 
importation  of  Arrac  or  Rack  was  regulated  by  n  Geo.  I. 
c.  30.  It  was  imported  to  make  punch,  so  called  Rack 
punch. 

Gin. — This  term    Mr.    Stanford    traces    from    French 


190  Appendix. 

ginevre,  abbreviated  from  the  Italian  ginepro,  Latin  juni- 
penis,  English /w«//£r,  the  berries  of  the  juniper  being  used 
in  the  distillation  of  the  spirit  as  a  flavoring  substance. 

Gin-sing. — This  is  the  term  used  by  the  Chinese  for  the 
famous  Mandrake  narcotic  reputed  to  be  worth  its  weight 
in  gold  for  medicinal  purposes,  and  at  the  head  of  their 
pharmacopoeia. 

Metheglin. — Was  the  name  of  a  fermented  honey-drink 
of  Cornwall,  an  intoxicating  narcotic  beverage. 

Potheen  or  Poteen — Itish,  Poitin. — A  small  pot  or  sti!5v 
the  name  of  the  liquor  being  derived  from  the  still  in  whick 
it  was  made.  Poitin  is  probably  from  the  Latin  potio^  a 
drink. 

Rum. — Mr.  Stanford  believes  the  word  "  rum  "  to  be  an 
abbreviation,  by  aphaeresis,  of  sacca-rum,  not  an  original 
native  name. 


THE 


ACTION  OF   ALCOHOL 


THE    BODY. 


THE 

ACTION    OF    ALCOHOL 

ON 

THE    BODY.* 


BY    BENJAMIN   W.   RICHARDSON,   M.D.,   F.R.S. 


SUPPOSE  it  were  possible  for  every  one  in  this 
large  assemblage  to  say  with  all  truthfulness,  while 
recasting  the  experiences  of  life :  "  I  know  of  one 
particular  agent  or  thing  which  has  directly  killed 
one  person  whom  I  knew.  The  human  being  thus 
slain  had  the  slaying  agent  under  his  own  absolute 
control.  He  need  not  have  touched  it  unless  he 
had  willed  so  to  do,  and  he  would  never  have  felt 
any  want  for  it  if  he  had  not  been  trained  to  feel 
the  want !  " 

Suppose  this  audience,  as  an  English  audience 
merely,  were  enlarged  until  it'  included  all  who 
might  fairly  form  an  audience  capable,  by  experience 
and  years  and  capacity  of  mind,  to  make  a  correct 
statement  on  what  they  had  clearly  and  definitely 
seen.  Suppose  every  one  of  them  could  say :  "  I, 
too,  know  that  the  same  agent  has  killed  one  person 
who  lived  in  my  circle  of  acquaintance,  so  that 
taking  us  all  in  combination  in  the  span  of  our  lives, 
which  may  fairly  be  included  in  thirty  years,  the  fatal 
effects  of  the  said  agent  have  been  witnessed  by 
ten  millions  of  observers !  " 

Suppose  we  could  listen  to  a  foreign  voice  speak- 

*  An  Address  delivered  in  the  Sheldonian  Theatre,  at  Oxford, 
at  the  request  of  the  CHURCH  OF  ENGLAND  TEMPERANCE 
ASSOCIATION. 


4  The  Action  of  Alcohol 

ing  to  us  from  across  the  Atlantic,  and  could  hear 
it  declare  on  the  authority  of  an  official  census  re- 
turn :  "  For  the  last  ten  years  this  one  agent  has 
imposed  upon  the  nation  (the  United  States)  a  di- 
rect expense  of  $600,000,000  ;  an  indirect  expense 
of  $600,000,000;  has  destroyed  300,000  lives;  has 
sent  100,000  children  to  the  poorhouses;  has  com- 
mitted at  least  150,000  people  into  prisons  and 
workhouses;  has  made  at  least  1,000  insane  ;  has  de- 
termined at  least  2,000  suicides ;  has  caused  the  loss 
by  fire  or  violence  of  $10,000,000  worth  of  property ; 
has  made  200,000  widows  and  1,000,000  orphans!  " 

Suppose,  returning  to  our  own  country,  we  were 
to  discover  that  among  those  unhappy  persons  who 
fill  our  asylums  for  the  insane,  two  out  of  three 
were  brought  there  owing  to  the  direct  or  indirect 
effects  of  this  destroyer.  That  amongst  the  para- 
lyzed who  sit  or.  lie  there  day  after  day,  until  in- 
evitable death  takes  them  away — all  of  them  al- 
ready in  the  shroud  of  a  living  death,  toneless, 
speechless,  helpless,  existing  only  by  their  mere 
vegetative  part — that  nine-tenths  of  these  are 
brought  to  the  condition  in  which  we  see  them  by 
the  direct  or  indirect  effects  of  this  one  destroyer. 

Suppose  we  entered  the  cells  of  our  prisons,  and 
amongst  those  we  met  wearing  out  their  lives  in 
solitude,  shame,  and  misery,  so  that  the  noblest  of 
all  that  is  human,  work,  sank  the  victims  into  a 
sense  of  deeper  degradation  ;  and  suppose  as  we 
stood  that  we  heard  the  voice  of  the  most  scientific 
scholar  who  ever  graced  the  judicial  bench  ol 
England  since  the  days  of  the  illustrious  Chancellor 
Bacon,  saying,  as  the  voice  of  Mr*  Justice  Grove 


On  the  Body.  5 

lately  said,  that  the  most  potent  influence  for  secur 
ing  these  incarcerations,  and  for  placing  the  raiser, 
ables  before  us  in  such  terrible  position,  was  this 
same  agent. 

Suppose  we  could  at  the  present  moment  see  be- 
fore us,  passing  in  sad  panoramic  display,  some  of 
the  broken-heartedness  of  this  still  unhappy  coun- 
try. Tortured  women,  undergoing  torture,  or  lis- 
tening with  palpitating  hearts,  and  with  their  chil- 
dren scared  and  hidden  away,  waiting  for  the 
dreaded  footsteps  of  him  whose  faintest  sound 
ought  to  be  the  joy  of  their  expectant  lives.  Could 
we  see  all  the  weeping  mothers  and  fathers  hoping 
against  hope  for  the  reformation  of  their  children ; 
mourning  a  loss  that  the  grave  even  will  relieve — loss 
to  truth,  honor,  self-respect,  affection,  duty,  honesty, 
every  virtue  on  which  parents  find  new  life  in  their 
offspring.  Suppose,  seeing  these  things  in  their 
unutterable  vastness,  we  could  say  they  are  the 
work  of  the  one  and  the  same  destroyer ! 

Suppose  we  could,  day  by  day,  keep  under  our 
observation  for  one  year  the  thousand  depots  in 
which  this  agent  is  stored  up,  and  from  which  it  is 
dispensed  in  million  potions  a  day  to  smite  and  to 
slay  young  and  middle-aged  and  old,  rich  and  poor, 
deluder  and  deluded,  polluted  and  polluting. 
Could  we  watch  the  inroads  of  death  into  each  of 
those  centers  of  distributing  death/  and  discover 
that  out  of  them  the  marauder  tore  138  to  100  of 
his  other  victims  elsewhere,  and  seeing  this  fact 
could  recognize  that  death,  more  than  just,  acted 
on  the  sellers  through  the  things  sold  ! 

Suppose  we  took  into  our  consideration  the  reck- 


6  The  Action  of  Alcohol 

oning  that  the  capital  which  is  invested  in  this  de- 
stroyer  represents  in  the  British  Islands  alone  the 
sum  of  £1 17,000,000  sterling.  That  the  duties 
paid  in  one  year  amount  at  least  to  ^30,000,000  of 
money  ;  that  each  tax-payer  who  has  an  income  ot 
£$oo  a  year  is  assessed  £31  toward  this  imposi- 
tion, whether  he  avail  himself  or  not  of  the  means 
to  injure  himself  by  the  cause  of  the  imposition  ! 

Suppose  we  knew  of  two  classes  of  people  who 
were  seeking,  in  forestallment  of  calamity  to  their 
families,  to  insure  their  lives,  and  that  the  distinc- 
tion into  classes  lay  simply  in  one  matter  —That  a 
certain  Class  (B)  habitually  subjected  itself,  and  a 
certain  Class  (C)  did  never  subject  itself,  to.this  par- 
ticular substance.  Suppose  it  were  found  in  respect 
to  these  applicants  that  Class  B  showed  a  mortality 
of  7  per  cent,  below  the  calculated  average  of  life, 
and  Class  C  a  mortality  of  26  per  cent,  below  that 
average ;  that  from  bonuses,  or  returns  from 
amount  of  premium  paid,  Class  B  received  34  per 
cent.,  Class  C  53  per  cent;  that  dealers  in  the  par- 
ticular agent  under  review  were  hardly  admissible 
even  into  Class  B,  and  that  their  vocation  added  a 
mortality  of  two  out  of  three  compared  with  the 
vocations  of  Class  C  ! 

Suppose,  in  passing  through  our  hospitals  for 
the  cure  of  the  sick,  the  physician  in  attendance 
were  to  name  all  the  forms  of  disease  there,  and 
were  to  say,  as  he  might  most  honestly,  these 
names,  very  different  in  kind,  and  seeming  to  de- 
note very  different  maladies — gout,  paralysis,  albu- 
minuria,  apoplexy,  delirium  tremens,  enfeebled 
heart,  eczema,  epilepsy,  consumption  (in  one  phase 


On  the  Body.  f 

of  that  disease  at  least),  liver  disease  or  cirrhosis, 
dropsy — to  say  nothing  of  other  maladies  under  dis- 
pute as  to  their  origin;  these  names  do  truly  but 
indicate  various  forms  of  disease  originating  in  one 
agency  to  which  these  afflicted  have  been  directly 
or  indirectly  subjected  !  * 

Suppose  it  were  possible,  after  this  general  sur- 
vey, to  be  able  to  cast  up  the  sum  of  misery  repre- 
sented in  such  varying  disguises,  and  to  prove  that 
they  are  all  the  work  of  one  common  enemy  of 
mankind,  should  we  not  hesitate,  almost  in  fear,  fear 
which  familiarity  itself  would  not  utterly  conquer, 
as  we  ask  ourselves:  Is  it  really  true?  Is  there 
such  an  enemy,  such  a  power,  such  a  bona  fide  devil 
in  our  midst? 

The  facts  must  stand  for  themselves  in  all  their 
terrible  reality.  There  is  such  a  devil,  though  he 
is  not  in  polite  language  called  so.  He  assumes 
various  names.  The  learned — owing  to  his  infinite 
subtlety,  a  subtlety  as  refined  as  the  impalpable 
powder  with  which  ancient  ladies  of  the  East 
dressed  their  hair — call  him  alcohol.  The  unlearned 
call  him  beer.  The  savages  call  him  fere-water. 
The  rollicking  scholars  call  him  wine.  The  slang- 
sters  call  him  B.  and  S.,  or  cocktail,  or  gin-sling. 
Gentler  lips,  that  ought  to  know  less  of  him 
and  more  of  botany,  sometimes  call  him  cherries. 
We  will  call  him  to-day,  because  of  his  subtlety, 
and  because,  after  all,  the  term  defines  him  best  foi 
our  purpose,  alcohol. 

In  this  audience  it  is  unnecessary  to  go  over 
again,  with  proofs  in  hand,  the  details  of  the 
charges  I  have  made  against  this  subtile  agent 


8  The  Action  of  Alcohol 

He  has  been  arraigned  for  them  over  and  over 
again  ;  he  has  been  proved  guilty  of  them  all  over 
and  over  again.  Yet  hath  he  always  escaped  scot- 
free,  and  continued  his  marauding,  kept  together 
nis  retinue,  and  defied  his  enemies.  He  has  paid 
his  Servants  in  their  own  coin  and  his  own,  making 
them  obey,  killing  them  as  they  obeyed,  and, 
stretching  out  his  empire  over  their  graves,  has  im- 
printed his  brand  on  the  offspring  they  have  raised, 
whether  the  offspring  approved  or  loathed  the 
badge  of  his  service. 

WHY  THE  ENEMY  EXISTS. 

The  startling  question  hereupon  faces  us — Why 
is  this  subtile  enemy  thus  allowed  to  go  free  ?  He  is 
not  recently  discovered  as  a  new  enemy.  Not  at 
all !  Solomon  detected  him,  and  the  good  race  of 
preachers  who  take  their  lead  from  that  wise  man 
have  continued  his  denunciation.  The  Esculapians 
from  the  first  have  detected  him,  and,  with  a  few 
fluctuating  periods  of  complacency  or  dalliance, 
have  run  him  down.  The  law-makers  have  de« 
nounced  him  in  all  ages. 

And  yet  he  lives! 

There  are  two  reasons  why  this  enemy  survives 
and  flourishes,  which  reasons  are  personal  to  man. 
I  mean  by  this  that  they  belong  to  man  individually, 
according  to  his  likings  and  beliefs.  These  are 
primary  or  direct  reasons  because  personal.  There 
are  other  reasons  which  have  sprung  out  of  the 
personal,  and  have  slipped  into  the  rule  of  what  is 
called  political  necessity.  These  are  indirect 
reasons,  and  they  rest  exclusively  on  the  direct 


On  the  Body.  9 

They  hold,  therefore,  notwithstanding  their  :m* 
mense  practical  importance,  a  second  place.  Trey 
would  speedily  be  set  aside  so  soon  as  the  first 
came  under  the  control  of  the  majority  of  the  na- 
tion. They  may  even  now  be  brought  under  cor- 
rection with  a  view  to  the  removal  of  the  errors 
they  sustain. 

I  am  aware  that  many  of  those  who  are  most 
earnest  in  the  cause  of  Temperance,  look  to  the  re- 
moval of  the  primary  reasons,  by  which  alcohol  re- 
tains its  place,  as  the  grand  remedy ;  and  certain  it 
is  that  until  those  primary  reasons  are  removed, 
the  greatest  reform  in  legislative  action  can  be  but 
of  slight  and  temporary  service.  It  seems,  how- 
ever, to  me,  that  sufficient  has  already  been  done 
in  the  way  of  influencing  the  education  of  the  peo- 
ple toward  the  truth,  to  enable  the  Legislature, 
backed  by  the  large  and  increasing  constituency 
which  holds  to  Temperance,  to  begin  to  invent 
some  practical  measure  which  shall  put  suppression 
of  the  common  enemy  under  certain  forms  of  legal 
recognition,  so  that  the  moral  reformer  may  have  a 
clear  course,  instead  of  being  impeded,  as  he  is  at 
this  time,  by  the  protection  which  the  law  system- 
atically extends  to  the  evil  he  would  root  up. 

I  will  return  to  this  topic  again,  at  a  later  stage 
of  my  discourse.  Let  me  recur  now  to  the  two 
primary  reasons  by  which  the  use  of  alcohol,  with 
all  its  attendanj;  calamities,  is  sustained. 

AN   INBRED   ENEMY. 

There  is  an  old  proverb  which  says  that  "  What 
is  bred  in  the  bone  will  never  come  out  of  the 


io  The  Action  of  Alec  hoi 

flesh."  The  proverb  is  not  quite  correct  anatomic- 
ally. It  should  have  said,  "  What  is  bred  in  the 
brain  will  never  come  out  of  the  flesh."  Even  then 
it  would  be  imperfect,  physiologically,  and  should 
read,  "What  is  bred  in  the  brain  will  never  come 
out  of  the  flesh  in  one  generation."  The  proverb, 
with  all  its  faults,  is  impressive  and  expressive.  It 
tells  correctly  enough  that  those  sins  which  are  en- 
grafted into  men  are  not  readily  eradicated.  In 
this  question  of  alcohol  and  the  errors  of  life  and 
taste  depending  upon  it,  the  saying  is  signally  cor- 
rect. In  communities  which  take  wine  as  a  general 
custom,  there  exists  a  system  of  breeding  the  cus- 
tom, which  is  not  dispelled  in  one,  nor  completely 
in  t.wo,  generations.  This  is  a  peculiarity  of  the 
action  of  alcohol  on  the  nervous  organization,  or  on 
that  essence  of  nervous  organization  subtler  than 
the  mere  nerve-matter  into  which  the  impressions 
are  instilled,  that  the  impression  it  makes  remains, 
and  is  transmitted,  like  feature,  and  taste,  and  dis- 
ease, from  the  parent  to  the  child.  Of  the  nature 
of  the  inscrutable  design,  by  which  attributes  and 
faculties,  evil  as  good  and  good  as  evil,  pass  from 
the  born  to  the  unborn,  I  pretend  to  know  nothing 
beyond  the  fact.  But  to  me  it  always  seems,  as  I 
think  it  must  to  you,  one  of  the  most  solemn  pas- 
sages of  human  knowledge.  To  know  that  even  in 
this  world  we  none  of  us  ever  die.  That  our  acts, 
our  virtues,  our  failures,  our  physical  conditions, 
appetites,  passions,  pass  on  to  other  generations. 
That  the  forms  we  mould  ourselves  to  by  acts 
original  to  ourselves,  pass  on  to  other  generations. 
That  hat/ts  and  passions  we  subdue  in  ourselves 


On  the  Body.  II 

are  subdued,  as  far  as  we  are  concerned,  in  other 
generations  that  spring  from  us. 

Therefore,  in  relation  to  the  influence  of  this  de- 
stroying agent,  alcohol,  one  of  the  primary  reasons 
for  its  continued  use  is  that  the  desire,  or  appetite, 
or  passion,  for  it  has  been  transmitted  to  us  by  our 
predecessors.  If  there  were  no  such  foundation  of 
appetite  and  passion  for  it,  any  one  of  the  argu- 
ments against  it  to  which  I  have  adverted  were 
sufficient  to  destroy  its  potency.  With  such  founda- 
tion all  the  arguments,  and  as  many  more  equally 
cogent,  were  of  no  direct  avail  with  the  masses 
that  are  influenced. 

Happily,  the  virtues  are  transmitted  not  less 
readily  than  the  errors  of  mankind ;  and  so  in  con- 
sidering this  primary  cause  of  the  continued  power 
of  the  destroyer  \ve  are  not  driven  as  men  without 
hope  to  doubt  our  efforts  for  the  destruction  of  the 
power.  Our  efforts,  in  every  instance  where  they 
succeed  in  the  present,  are  multiplied  so  man) 
times  into  the  future,  that  a  generation  or  two  wiL 
plant  a  new  order,  and  make  what  is  to  us  the  mos: 
difficult  portion  of  our  labor  the  easiest  part  of  the 
future  emancipation. 

In  every  effort  it  is  always  best  to  look  the  grave- 
est  difficulty  first  in  the  face ;  and  I  put  this  diffi- 
culty in  view  at  once,  that  all  may  see  and  detect 
for  themselves  the  mode  of  removing  it.  Detect 
that  its  removal  is  certain,  and  some  day  rapid,  if 
the  course  of  reformation  be  steadfastly  pursued  : 
detect  also  that  patience  is  necessary,  and  that  time 
spent  is  not  time  lost,  but  is  time  employed,  in  the 
most  useful  way,  for  securing  the  harvest  of  good 
results,  the  success  that  will  assuredly  follow. 


12  The  Action  of  AlcoJiol 


FALSE   BELIEFS. 

The  second  primary  cause  for  the  continued 
power  of  alcohol  in  the  world  is  falseness  of  belief 
as  to  the  effect  of  the  agent  upon  the  body  and  the 
bodily  powers.  From  the  hilarity  produced  by 
wine,  and  which  was  originally  conceived  to  be  its 
only  virtue,  to  "  make  glad  the  heart,"  there  has 
crept  into  the  habits  of  men  the  desire  to  be  made 
hilarious  at  every  meal.  From  this  desire  has  come 
the  practice  of  introducing  wine  or  other  spirituous 
drinks  at  certain  meals  regularly ;  and  from  this, 
again,  by  association  of  wine  and  its  allies  with 
food,  has  come  the  idea  that  the  hilarity-provoking 
stimulant  is  also  a  food. 

To  this  view  Science  herself,  in  opposition  to 
common-sense  experience,  gave,  some  years  ago, 
her  sanction.  It  was  a  sanction  slowly  rendered, 
and  never  perfectly  rendered.  It  was  a  sanction 
founded  on  the  analogy  of  physical  action  of 
alcohol  outside  the  body,  its  property  of  preserv- 
ing from  putrefaction,  and  its  burning,  rather  than 
on  any  correct  observation  as  to  its  true  physiologi- 
cal action  on  living  animal  organisms.  But  there 
is  no  denying  that  the  sanction  was  given,  and  that 
it  has  inflicted,  for  a  time,  an  incomparable  wrong. 
It  has  given  a  reason  for  the  habitual  use  of  alcohol 
which  is,  I  repeat,  a  primary  reason.  It  suggests 
not  only  that  alcohol  is  a  food,  but  that  it  is  a 
necessary  food.  A  food  man  can  not  do  without, 
A  sustaining  food,  which  in  this  overworked  day  is 
more  requisite  than  ever. 

A  few  persons,  whose  eyes  are  opened  to  the 


On  the  Body.      •  13 

fallacy  of  this  reasoning,  use  it  notwithstanding1, 
because  in  their  hearts  they  are  infatuated  with  the 
liking  for  alcohol,  and  are  glad  to  find  any  excuse 
that  shall  minister  to  their  own  inclinations.  The 
majority  of  persons  whose  eyes  arc  not  opened  to 
the  truth,  believe  in  this  reasoning  absolutely,  and 
act  upon  it  with  implicit  honesty.  These  often  tell 
you  with  perfect  candor  they  regret  as  much  as  can 
be  regretted  the  evils  they  can  not  fail  to  recognize  ; 
but,  say  they,  of  what  use  is  it  deploring  evils  that 
spring  from  a  necessity  ?  I  have  never  yet  met  with 
a  legislator  who  declined  to  legislate  against  alcohol 
who  did  not  express  as  the  reason  for  his  action  this 
theory  of  necessity.  I  have  never  yet  conversed 
with  a  member  of  my  own  learned  profession,  who 
was  in  favor  of  alcohol,  who  did  not  assign  the  self- 
same argument.  I  have  never  vet  spoken  with  a 
clergyman  on  that  side  of  the  question  who  did  not 
follow  the  politician  and  the  doctor,  and  adduce  not 
only  their  reason,  but  their  authority. 

It  is  the  duty  of  us  who  have  seen  the  true  light 
on  the  question  of  temperance  to  deal  plainly  and 
faithfully  with  the  reasoning  on  this  point  of  neces- 
sity. That' false  doctrine  eradicated,  the  power  of 
alcohol  for  all  its  evil  is  undermined.  That  left  in 
doubt,  the  power  of  alcohol  to  continue  all  its  evils 
remains  practically  untouched.  I  believe,  there- 
fore, that  from  the  position  I  now,  by  your  favor, 
occupy,  1  can  not  do  better  than  tackle  this  reason- 
ing again  on  scientific  evidence  :  and  on  the  grcund 
that— 

"  Truth  can  never  be  confirmed  enough, 
Though  doubt  should  ever  sleep,"-. 


14  The  Action  of  Alcohol 

venture  in  a  few  sentences  to  repeat  what  I  have 
spoken  on  many  public  occasions  on  this  vital  mat- 
ter. 

ORIGINAL  RESEARCHES   ON  THE  ACTION  OF 
ALCOHOL. 

Iii  so  speaking,  I  can  not,  I  think,  do  better  or 
simpler  than  narrate  the  individual  method  of  in- 
quiry by  which,  in  an  independent  way,  I  was 
brought,  without  being  able  to  avoid  the  result,  to 
the  conclusion  I  submit  to  you,  viz.,  that  the  popu- 
lar prevailing  idea  that  alcohol,  as  a  food,  is  a  neces- 
sity for  man  has  no  basis  whatever  from  a  scientific 
point  of  view. 

Let  me  say,  that  at  the  commencement  of  the 
labors  which  brought  me  to  the  conclusion  above 
stated,  I  had  no  basis  in  favor  of  or  preconceived 
opinion  respecting  alcohol. 

Like  many  other  men  of  science,  I  had  been  too 
careless  or  too  oblivious  of  those  magnificent  labors 
which  the  advocates  of  temperance  for  its  own  sake 
had,  for  many  previous  years,  through  good  report 
and  evil  report,  so  nobly  and  truthfully  carried  out. 
But  for  what  may  be  called  one  of  the  accidents  of 
a  scientific  career,  I  might  indeed,  to  the  end  of  my 
days,  have  continued  negative  on  this  question. 

The  circumstance  that  led  me  to  the  special  study 
of  alcohol  is  simply  told.  In  the  year  1863  I  di- 
rected the  attention  of  the  British  Association  for 
the  Advancement  of  Science,  during  its  meeting  at 
Newcastle,  to  the  action  of  a  chemical  substance 
called  nitrite  of  amyl,  the  physiological  properties 
of  which  I  had  for  some  months  previously  been  sub 


On  the  Body.  15 

jecting  to  investigation.  My  researcl  cs  attracted 
So  much  attention,  that  I  was  desired  by  the  physio- 
logical section  of  the  Association,  over  which  Pro- 
fessor Rolleston  most  ably  presided,  to  continue 
them,  and,  in  the  end,  I  was  enabled  to  place  in  the 
hands  of  the  physician  one  of  the  most  useful  and 
remarkable  medicinal  agents  that  has  ever  been  sup- 
plied by  the  chemist  for  the  relief  of  human  suffer- 
ing. The  success  of  this  research  led  the  Associa- 
tion to  entrust  me  with  further  labors,  and  in  the 
course  of  pursuing  them,  other  chemical  substances, 
nearly  allied  to  .that  from  which  I  started,  came 
under  observation.  Amongst  these  was  the  well- 
known  chemical  product  which  the  Arabian  chemist, 
Albucasis,  is  said  first  to  have  distilled  from  wine, 
which  on  account  of  its  subtlety  was  called  alcohol, 
which  is  now  called  ethylic  alcohol,  and  which  forms 
the  stimulating  part  of  all  wines,  spirits,  beers,  and 
other  ordinary  intoxicating  drinks. 

In  my  hands  this  common  alcohol,  and  other 
bodies  of  the  same  group,  viz.,  methylic,  propylic, 
butylic,  and  a  my  lie  alcohols,  were  tested  purely 
from  the  physiological  point  of  view.  They  were 
tested  exclusively  as  chemical  substances  apart  from 
any  question  as  to  their  general  use  and  employ- 
ment, and  free  from  all  bias,  for  or  against  their  in- 
fluence on  mankind  for  good  or  for  evil. 

The  method  of  research  that  was  pursued  was 
the  same  that  had  been  followed  in  respect  to  nitrite 
of  amyl,  chloroform,  ether,  amylene,  and  other 
chemical  bodies,  and  it  was  in  the  following  order: 
First,  the  mode  in  which  living  bodies  would  take 
up  or  absorb  the  substance  was  considered  This 


10  The  Action  of  Alcohol 

settled,  the  quantity  necessary  to  produce  a  decided 
physiological  change  was  ascertained,  and  was 
estimated  in  relation  to  the  weight  of  the  living 
body  on  which  the  observation  was  made.  After 
these  facts  were  ascertained  the  special  action  ot 
the  agent  was  investigated  on  the  blood,  on  the 
motion  of  the  heart,  on  the  respiration,  on  the 
minute  circulation  of  the  blood,  on  the  digestive 
organs,  on  the  secreting  and  excreting  organs,  on 
the  nervous  system  and  brain,  on  the  animal  tem- 
perature, and  on  the  muscular  activity.  By  these 
processes  of  inquiry,  each  specially  carried  out,  I 
was  enabled  to  test  fairly  the  action  of  the  different 
chemical  agents  that  came  before  me. 

In  the  case  of  alcohol,  tried  by  these  tests,  1 
found  then  a  definite  order  of  facts,  the  principal 
of  which  I  may  narrate^/  It  was  discovered  that 
alcohol,  being  a  substance  very  soluble  in  water, 
would  enter  the  bod)'  by  every  absorbing  surface : 
by  the  skin,  by  the  stomach,  by  the  blood,  and  by 
the  inhalation  of  its  vapor  in  the  lungs.  But  so 
greedy  is  it  for  water  that  it  must  first  be  diluted 
before  it  can  be  freely  absorbed.  If  it  be  not  so 
diluted  it  will  seize  the  water  from  the  tissues  to 
which  it  is  applied,  and  will  harden  and  coagulate 
them.  In  this  way  it  may  even  be  made  to  coagu- 
late the  blood  itself,  and  in  some  instances  of  rapid 
poisoning  by  it,  the  death  has  occurred  from  the 
coagulation  of  blood  within  the  vessels,  or  in  the 
heart. 

The  quantity  required  for  absorption  in  order  to 
produce  distinct  effects  is  from  twenty  to  thirty 
grains  of  the  fluid  to  the  pound  weight  of  the 


On  the  Body.  I? 

animal  body,  m  those  who  have  not  become 
habituated  to  the  influence  of  it.  In  quantities 
that  can  be  tolerated  it  affects  the  blood,  making 
that  fluid  unduly  thin  or  coagulating  it,  according 
to  the  amount  of  it  that  is  carried  into  the  circu- 
lating system.  It  acts  on  the  blood-corpuscles, 
causing  them  to  undergo  modifications  of  shape 
and  size,  and  reducing  their  power  of  absorbing 
oxygen  from  the  air.  It  changes  the  natural  action 
of  the  heart,  causing  the  heart  to  beat  with  undue 
rapidity  and  increasing  the  action,  in  extreme 
instances,  to  such  a  degree  that  the  organ  in  an 
adult  man  is  driven  to  the  performance  of  an  excess 
of  work  equal  to  the  labor  of  lifting  over  twenty- 
four  tons  weight  one  foot  in  twentyd'our  hours.  In 
some  instances  the  number  of  extra  strokes  of  the 
heart  produced  by  alcohol  has  reached  25,000  in 
the  twenty-four  hours.  The  effect  on  the  respira. 
lion  follows  that  on  the  heart,  and  is  correspond- 
ingly deranged. 

On  the  minute  blood-vessels,  those  vessels  which 
brm  the  terminals  of  the  arteries  and  in  which  the 
Vital  acts  of  nutrition  and  production  of  animal  heat 
and  force  are  carried  on,  alcohol  produces  a  para- 
lyzing effect  in  the  same  manner  as  does  the  nitrite 
of  amyl.  Hence  the  flush  of  the  face  and  hands 
which  we  observe  in  those  who  have  partaken 
freely  of  wine.  This  flush  extends  to  all  parts,  to 
the  brain,  to  the  lungs,  to  the  digestive  organs. 
Carried  to  its  full  extent  it  becomes  a  congestion, 
and  in  those  who  are  long  habituated  to  excess  of 
alcohol  the  permanency  of  the  congestion  is  seen 
in  the  discolored,  blotched  skin,  and,  too  often,  in 


1 8  The  Action  of  Alcohol 

the  disorganization  which  is  planted  in  the  vita, 
organs,  the  lungs,  the  liver,  the  kidney,  the  brain. 

On  the  digestive  system  alcohol  acts  differently 
according  to  the  degree  in  which  it  is  used.  In 
small  quantities  it  excites  the  mi/cous  membrane 
of  the  stomach  so  as  to  increase  the  secretion  of 
gastric  juice,  and  from  that  circumstance  some 
think  it  assists  digestion.  In  larger  quantities  it 
impairs  the  secretion  and  weakens  digestion,  pro- 
ducing flatulency  and  distension  of  the  stomach. 
On  the  liver,  if  the  action  of  the  spirit  be  at  all  ex- 
cessive, the  influence  is  bad.  Organic  change  of 
the  structure  of  the  liver  is  very  easily  induced. 
The  same  is  true  in  respect  to  the  action  of  the 
agent  on  the  kidney. 

On  the  nervous  system  alcohol  exerts  a  double 
action.  There  are  two  nervous  systems  in  man 
and  in  the  higher  animals,  viz.,  the  vegetative  or 
mere  animal  nervous  system,  and  the  cerebral  and 
spinal  nervous  system  which  receives  the  pictures 
of  the  external  universe,  and  is  the  seat  of  the 
functions  of  reason  and  of  the  supremer  mental 
faculties.  On  both  these  systems,  vegetative  and 
reasoning,  alcohol  produces  diverse  actions,  all  of 
which  are  perverse  to  the  natural.  At  first  it 
paralyzes  those  nervous  fibers  of  the  organic  or 
vegetative  system  which  control  the  minute  vessels 
of  the  circulation.  By  this  means  a  larger  supply 
of  blood  is  driven  by  the  heart  into  the  nervous 
centers,  and  nervous  action  from  them  is  first  ex- 
cited, afterward  blunted  ;  the  brain  is  in  a  glow, 
and  that  stage  of  mental  exhilaration  which  is  con- 
sidered the  cheering  and  exciting  stage  of  wine- 


On  the  Body.  19 

drinking  is  experienced.  After  a  time,  if  the  action 
progresses,  the  opposite  condition  obtains ;  the 
function  of  the  higher  mental  centers  is  depressed, 
the  mere  animal  centers  remain  uncontrolled 
masters  of  the  intellectual  man,  and  the  man  sinks 
into  the  lower  animal  in  everything  but  shape  of 
material  body.  In  the  lower  animals  a  state  of 
actual  madness  accompanies  this  stage,  and  in 
man,  sometimes,  the  same  terrible  condition  is  also 
witnessed. 

Not  only  are  the  brain  and  nervous  centers  thus 
paralyzed,  the  other  vital  organs  of  the  body  which 
have  their  fine,  minute  vascular  structures  governed 
by  the  nervous  current,  the  lungs,  the  brain,  the 
liver,  the  kidney,  the  lining  or  mucous  surface  of 
the  digestive  system,  the  various  serous  surfaces  of 
the  body,  are  also  through  their  weakened  vessels 
surcharged  with  blood.  They  are  congested  as 
the  skin  is  when  the  body  of  the  drinker  is  flushed 
with  wine  ;  or,  to  use  another  simile,  as  the  surface 
of  the  body  is  after  the  vessels,  long  stricken  by 
cold,  are  relaxing  and  glowing  red  under  the  ap- 
plication of  heat. 

In  this  manner,  by  the  course  of  experiment,  I 
learned,  step  by  step,  that  the  true  action  of  alcohol, 
in  a  physiological  point  of  view,  is  to  create  paral- 
ysis of  nervous  power.  It  acts  precisely  as  I  had 
seen  nitrite  of  amyl  and  some  other  chemical  bodies 
act. 

Previously  to  the  performance  of  these  re- 
searches, some  distinguished  physiologists  had 
shown  that  mechanical  division  of  the  nervous 
cords  which  govern  the  vascular  supply  of  special 


2O  The  Action  of  Alcohol 

parts  of  the  body  leads  to  flushing  those  parts  with 
blood.  I  traced,  a  little  later,  that  the  local  para- 
lysing action  of  extreme  cold  was  practically  the 
same  process,  and  was  therefore  followed  by  the 
same  effects.  And  now  in  these  inquiries  into  the 
influence  of  chemical  agents,  I  discovered  an -exact 
analogy,  nay,  I  may  say,  in  all  but  the  method,  an 
identity  of  principle.  If  we  could  temporarily 
divide  with*  the  knife  all  the  nervous  supplies  of  the 
vascular  structures  of  the  body,  we  should  tempo- 
rarily produce  the  same  conditions  as  are  produced 
by  such  diffusive  escaping  agencies  as  nitrite  of 
amyl  or  alcohol.  We  should  set  the  heart  at  liberty 
to  work  against  reduced  resistance;  we  should  see 
the  vessels  of  the  skin  and  other  parts  intensely  in- 
jected with  blood  ;  and,  if  we  repeated  the  process 
many  times,  we  should  witness  structural  changes 
of  parts,  organic  disease,  structural  diseases;  such 
changes  as  are  produced  in  those  who  suffer  from 
excess  of  alcohol  during  long  periods  of  time. 

In  brief,  my  experimental  inquiries  led  me  to  dis- 
cern, without  original  intention  of  such  discern- 
ment, that  the  power  for  which  alcohol  is  esteemed, 
its  power  as  an  agent  to  liberate  the  heart,  to  ex- 
cite the  nervous  centers  and  influence  the  passions, 
to  afterward  congest  the  centers  and  dull  the  pas- 
sions, to  make  men  violent  and  mad,  then  imbecile 
and  palsied,  is,  all  through,  one  power  in  variou? 
stages  of  development  and  degree:  a  power  not 
exercised  for  the  elevation,  but  for  the  reduction  of 
all  the  functions  of  life. 

Pursuing  still  the  plan  I  had  set  forth  for  the 
general  method  of  investigating  the  action  of  chemi 


On  the  Body.  21 

cal  substances  on  anima1  bodies,  I  was  led  to  study 
the  influence  of  alcohol  on  the  animal  temperature. 
The  prevailing  view  on  this  subject  had  been  that 
alcohol  increases  and  maintains  the  animal  tempera- 
ture. This  view,  it  is  true,  had  been  challenged. 
Dr.  Aitken  had  challenged  it  many  years  ago  in  the 
first  volume  of  the  Literary  and  Philosophical  So- 
ciety of  Manchester.  '1  lie  illustrious  Bedcloes  had 
challenged  it.  The  late  Dr.  Cheyne,  of  Dublin,  had 
challenged  it.  Dr.  Carpenter,  Dr.  Lees,  and  some 
others  whose  prescience  had  been  far  more  apute 
than  mine,  had  challenged  it.  In  perfect  candor, 
the  inference  had  been  drawn  by  many  observers 
that  alcohol  reduces  the  animal  temperature;  that 
those  who  are  exposed  to  extremes  of  cold  are  best 
fortified  against  cold  when  they  abstain  from  alco- 
hol and  depend  on  warm  uri intoxicating  drinks;  and 
that  the  popular  idea  on  the  subject  was  wrong. 
At  the  same  time,  it  is  certain  that  the  impressions 
of  these  eminent  scientists  were  not  so  confirmed 
by  direct  and  absolute  experimental  research  as  to 
satisfy  the  world  in  general  of  their  correctness. 
For  my  own  part,  I  was  ignorant,  and  that  is  why 
I  sought  for  certain  knowledge.  To  the  reseaVch 
I  devoted  three  years,  from  1863  to  1866,  modifying 
experiments  in  ever}'-  conceivable  way,  taking  ad- 
vantage of  seasons  and  varying  temperatures  of 
season,  extending  observation  from  one  class  of  ani- 
mal to  another,  and  making  comparative  researches 
with  other  bodies  of  the  alcohol  series  than  the 
ethylic  or  common  alcohol. 

The  results,  I  confess,  were  as  surprising  to  me 
as  to  any  One  else*.     They  were  surprising  frona 


22  The  Action  of  Alcohol 

their  definitiveness  and  their  uniform:  y.  They 
were  most  surprising  from  the  complete  contradic- 
tion they  gave  to  the  popular  idea  that  alcohol  is  a 
supporter  and  sustainer  of  the  animal  temperature. 

It  will  be  borne  in  mind  that  I  have  described  a 
flush  from  alcohol  as  the  first  effect  of  it  in  its  first 
stage,  when  into  the  paralyzed  vessels  the  larger 
volume  of  blood  is  poured.  In  that  stage,  that  is  to 
say  in  the  earlier  part  of  it,  I  found  an  increase  of 
temperature.  This  increase,  however,  was  soon 
discovered  to  be  nothing  more  than  radiation  from 
an  enlarged  surface  of  blood ;  a  process,  in  fact,  of 
rapid  cooling,  followed  quickly  by  direct  evidence 
of  cooling.  After  this  I  found  that  through  every 
subsequent  stage  of  the  alcoholic  process,  the  stage 
of  excitement,  of  temporary  partial  paralysis  of 
muscle,  of  narcotism  and  deep  intoxication,  the 
temperature  was  reduced  in  the  most  marked  de- 
gree. I  placed  alcohol  and  cold  side  by  side  in  ex- 
periment, and  found  that  they  ran  together  equally 
in  fatal  effect,  and  I  determined  that  in  death  from 
alcohol  the  great  reduction  of  animal  temperature 
is  one  of  the  most  pressing  causes  of  death.  I 
showed  that  this  effect  of  alcohol  in  reducing  the 
animal  temperature  extends  through  all  the  mem- 
bers of  the  alcohol  group  of  chemical  substances, 
and  that  with  increase  of  the  specific  weight  of  the 
spirit  the  reducing  effect  is  intensified. 

Thus,  by  particular  and  varied  experiment,  it 
was  placed  beyond  the  range  of  controversy  that 
alcohol,  instead  of  being  a  producer  of  heat  in  those 
who  consume  it,  and  therefore  a  food  in  that  sense, 
is  a  depressor,  and  therefore  not  a  food  in  that 


On  the  Body  23 

sense.  The  earliest  scientists  were  confirmed  in 
their  peculiar  views  to  the  letter.  I  honor  them  for 
their  originality  and  truth  as  heartily  as  I  appreci- 
ate the  privilege  of  having  been  the  first  to  apply 
the  modern  and  more  accurate  system  of  ther- 
rnometric  inquiry  to  test,  and,  as  it  turned  out,  to 
confirm  and  establish  their  observations  and  prac- 
tices. 

From  the  study  of  the  action  of  alcohol  on  the 
temperature  of  animal  bodies,  I  proceeded  next  to 
test  it  in  respect  to  its  effects  as  a  sustainer  of  the 
muscular  power.  Here  I  had  the  experience  of 
the  trainers  of  athletes  to  guide  me,  an  experience 
which  was  strongly  against  the  use  of  alcohol  as  a 
supporter  of  muscular  power  and  endurance.  I 
preferred,  however,  to  test  again  minutely  the  di- 
rect effect  of  alcohol  on  muscular  contraction,  the 
result  being  the  determination  that,  with  the  ex- 
ception of  a  very  brief  period  during  the  earliest 
stage  of  alcoholic  flushing,  the  muscular  force,  like 
the  temperature,  fails  under  its  influence.  In  a 
word,  I  found  that  the  helplessness  of  muscle  under 
which  the  inebriated  man  sinks  beneath  the  table, 
and  under  which  the  paralyzed  inebriate  sinks  into 
the  grave,  is  a  cumulative  process,  beginning  so 
soon  as  the  physiological  effect  of  alcohol  is  pro- 
nounced, and  continuing  until  the  triumph  of  the 
agent  over  the  muscular  power  is  completed. 

SUMMARY    JF   RESEARCH. 

What  I  may  call  the  preliminary  and  physiologi- 
cal part  of  my  research  vas  now  concluded.  I  had 
learned,  purely  by  experimental  observation,  that 


24  The  Action  of  Alcohol 

in  its  action  on  the  living  body,  this  chemical  sub- 
stance, alcohol,  deranges  the  constitution  of  the 
blood ;  unduly  excites  the  heart  and  respiration ; 
paralyzes  the  minute  blood-vessels ;  increases  and 
decreases,  according  to  the  degree  of  its  applica- 
tion, the  functions  of  the  digestive  organs,  of  the 
liver,  and  of  the  kidneys;  disturbs  the  regularity 
of  nervous  action  ;  lowers  the  animal  temperature  ; 
and  lessens  the  muscular  power. 

Such,  independently  of  any  prejudice  of  party  or 
influence  of  sentiment,  are  the  unanswerable  teach- 
ings of  the  sternest  of  all  evidences,  the  evidences 
of  experiment,  of  natural  fact  revealed  to  man  by 
experimental  testing  of  natural  phenomena.  If  alco- 
hol had  never  been  heard  of,  as  nitrite  of  amyl  and 
many  other  chemical  substances  I  have  tested  had 
never  been  heard  of  by  the  masses  of  mankind,  this 
is  the  evidence  respecting  alcohol  which  I  should 
have  collected,  and  these  are  the  facts  I  should  have 
recorded  from  the  evidence. 

This  record  of  simple  experimental  investigation 
nnd  result  respecting  the  action  of  alcohol  on  the 
body  were  incomplete  without  two  other  observa- 
tions, which  come  in  as  a  natural  supplement.  It 
will  be  asked :  Was  there  no  evidence  of  any  use- 
ful service  rendered  by  the  agent  in  the  midst  of 
so  much  obvious  evidence  of  bad  .service  ?  I  an- 
swer to  that  question  that  there  was  no  such  evi- 
dence whatever,  and  there  is  none.  It  has  been 
urged,  as  a  last  kind  of  resource  and  excuse,  that 
alcohol  aids  digestion,  and  so  far  is  useful.  I  sup- 
port, in  reply,  the  statement  of  the  late  Dr.  Cheyne, 
that  nothing  more  effectively  hinders  digestion 


On  the  Body.  2$ 

than  alcohol.  That  "  many  hours,  and  even  a 
whole  night,  after  a  debauch  in  wine,  it  is  common 
enough  to  reject  a  part  or  the  whole  of  a  dinner 
undigested."  I  hold  that  those  who  abstain  from 
alcohol  have  the  best  digestions;  and  that  more  in- 
stances of  indigestion,  of  flatulency,  of  acidity,  and 
of  depression  of  mind  and  body,  are  produced  by 
alcohol  than  by  any  other  single  cause. 

This  excuse  removed,  there  remains  none  other 
for  alcohol  that  is  reasonably  assignable  except  that 
temporary  excitement  of  mind  which,  in  spite  of 
the  assumption  of  its  jollity  and  happiness,  is  one 
of  the  surest  ultimate  introductions  to  pain  and 
sorrow.  But  if  there  be  no  excuse  favored  by 
scientific  research  on  behalf  of  alcohol,  there  is 
sufficient  of  appalling  reasons  against  it  superadded 
when  the  pathological  results  of  its  use  are  sur 
veyed  upon  the  physiological.  The  mere  question 
of  the  destructive  effect  of  alcohol  on  the  mem- 
branes of  the  body  alone  would  be  a  sufficient  study 
for  an  address  on  the  mischiefs  of  it.  I  can  not  de- 
fine it  better,  indeed,  than  to  say  that  it  is  an  agent 
as  potent  for  evil  as  it  is  helpless  for  good.  It  be- 
gins by  destroying,  it  ends  by  destruction,  and  it 
implants  organic  changes  which  progress  independ- 
ently of  its  presence  even  in  those  who  are  not 
born. 

EXPULSION  OF  THE  ENEMY. 

I  would  venture  now  for  a  few  minutes  to  pass 
from  narrative  of  fact  to  invite  attention  to  the 
question  of  the  means  that  are  before  us  for  expel- 
ling from  our  homes,  from  our  nation,  from  the 
,  an  enemy  that  is  so  subtile  and  destructive. 


26  The  Action  of  Alcohol 

The  time  has  come  when  that  expulsion  is  the  duty 
of  every  man  who  is  bold  enough  to  fee  that  he  is 
his  brother's  keeper,  not  less  than  the  keeper  of  his 
own  selfish  interests  and  desires.  The  period  of 
silence  on  this  subject  has  passed ;  the  period  of 
ridicule  has  passed  ;  the  period  of  fear  has  passed. 
The  period  for  united  common  work  amongst  all 
classes  of  society  against  the  common  foe  has  come. 

As  I  touch  this  question,  I  ask  myself— What  has 
influenced  me  to  take  part  in  this  cause  ?  I  an- 
swer— The  facts  I  have  observed  in  regard  to  the 
action  of  alcohol  on  the  animal  body  ;  the  facts  of 
its  utter  uselessness ;  the  facts  of  its  deadly  evil. 
I  argue  thereupon  that  if  I,  who  had  no  bias  against 
this  agent,  who  was  taught  indeed  in  schools  of  sci- 
ence and  from  Jips  I  reverenced,  that  the  thing  was 
a  necessity  of  life ;  if  I,  thus  trained,  can  be  brought 
by  new  light  to  see  the  actual  truth,  and  to  be 
moved  by  it,  so  can  all,  except  those  who  are  so 
enslaved  that  their  fetters  have  become  an  insepar- 
able part  of  their  existence. 

I  argue  further  on  this,  that  the  primary  duty  of 
all  who  would  join  in  the  war  of  expulsion  of  the 
common  enemy  is  to  teach,  proclaim,  demonstrate 
the  same  facts  as  I  have  to-day,  with  other  such 
persuasions  as  may  be  adapted  to  the  mind,  and,  I 
may  say,  to  the  heart,  of  him  who  is  being  taught. 
Specially  would  I  urge  that  the  young  should 
be  thus  impressed.  That  in  every  Board  school 
of  England  there  should  be  a  class  beyond  the 
three  R's — a  class  where  the  claims  of  temperance 
should  be  impressed  on  the  scholar  with  all  the 
force  of  scientific  instruction.  If  from  the  present 


On  the  Body.  27 

Conference  this  one  suggestion  could  find  iis  way 
into  practical  working,  we  shall  not  have  met  to- 
day in  this  great  seat  of  learning  in  vain. 

POWER   OF   EXAMPLE. 

The  next  advance  toward  the  great  reformation 
we  have  in  ,view  is  to  place  side  by  side  with  the 
propagation  of  truth  the  example  of  truth.  I  have 
done  something  in  this  crusade  by  my  work  as  a 
teacher ;  but  the  work  would  be  badly  supported 
indeed  if  it  were  not  seconded  by  the  practice  of 
that  which  I  have  taught.  To  say  to  a  man  who  is 
wavering,  who  believes  the  teaching  of  absti- 
nence to  be  right,  and  who  yet  fears  to  try  it,  I, 
the  teacher,  can  do  without  the  agent  you  trust  in, 
can  work  better  without  it,  can  live  better  without 
it,  can  live  much  happier  without  it,  can  feel  that 
what  I  once  thought  to  be  a  necessity  would  now 
be  an  incumbrance  ;  to  say  this  is  to  be  strung  up 
to  the  very  heart,  is  to  feel  the  argument  strung  up 
to  the  height  of  tension,  and  every  word  an  arrow 
going  straight  home.  To  be  able  to.  do  less  than 
this  is  to  act  "  doubtingly,"  and  to  experience  what 
the  Lord  Protector  so  truly  defined — "  whatsoever 
is  so  is  not  of  faith ;  and  whatsoever  is  not  of  faith 
is  sin  to  him  that  doth  it." 

THE   MODERATION   FALLACY. 

This  thought  leads  me  to  add  a  word  on  what  is 
called  the  practice  of  moderation  in  the  use  of  al- 
cohol.    I  believe  the  Church  of  England  Temper- 
ance  Association   is  divided  by  two   lines,  one  of  • 
which  marks  off  total  abstainers,  the  other  moder- 


28  The  Action  of  Alcohol 

ate  indulgers.  I  am  one  of  those  who  have  once 
been  bitten  by  the  plea  of  moderate  indulgence. 
Mr.  Worldly  Wiseman,  with  his  usual  industry, 
tapped  me  on  the  shoulder,  as  he  does  every  man, 
and  held  a  long  and  plausible  palaver  on  this  very 
subject.  If  I  had  not  been  a  physician  he  might 
have  converted  me.  But  side  by  side  with  his 
wisdom  there  came  fortunately  the  knowledge, 
which  I  could  not,  dare  not,  ignore,  that  the  mere 
moderate  man  is  never  safe,  neither  in  the  counsel 
he  gives  to  others,  nor  in  the  practice  he  follows 
for  himself.  Furthermore,  I  observed,  as  a  physi- 
ological, or,  perhaps,  psychological,  fact,  that  the 
attraction  of  alcohol  for  itself  is  cumulative.  That 
so  long  as  it  is'present  in  a  human  body,  even  in 
small  quantities,  the  longing  for  it,  the  sense  of  re- 
quirement for  it,  is  present,  and  that  as  the  amount 
of  it  insidiously  increases,  so  does  the  desire. 

On  the  other  hand,  I  learned  that  the  entire  free- 
dom from  the  agent  controls  entirely  the  desire. 
That  he  who  is  actually  emancipated  is  free.  But 
that  he  who  has  a  single  link  of  the  tyrant  on  his 
sleeve  is  still  a  slave,  on  whom  more  links  are  at- 
tached with  an  ease  that  gives  no  indication  until 
the  limbs  are  bound. 

LEGISLATION  AND   THE  PERMISSIVE  BILL. 

A  man  of  science  trusts,  naturally,  to  the  devel- 

opment  of  truth  and   to  progress  out  of  natural 

growth  of  scientific  labor.     He  feels  but  secondary 

sympathies  with  the  mere  legislator  who  so  often, 

•in  the  present  grossly  empirical  phase  of  his  labor, 

legislates  in  darkness  and  in  backward  movement 


On  the  Body.  29 

toward  ages  darker  than  his  own.  My  mind,  there- 
fore, has  been  more  directed  to  the  educational 
part  of  the  alcohol  question  than  to  the  legislative. 
Yet  I  could  not  close  this  address  without  recurring 
a  moment  to  what  I  have  already  said,  viz.,  that 
the  time  has  come  when  the  Parliament  of  this 
country  must  in  earnest  legislate  for  the  suppres- 
sion, at  least  in  part,  of  that  national  folly  and  dis- 
grace— the  raising  of  national  funds  from  national 
degradation.  It  can  not  surely  be  long  now  that  a 
free  government  will  extract  its  resources  from  the 
graves  of  its  people  ! 

It  is  impossible  to  ignore  these  truths,  and  so,  as 
legislation  is  forced  on  the  attention,  we  who  are  in 
the  forward  ranks  as  teachers  must  guide  the  un- 
informed to  that  legislation  which  we  consider 
wisest  for  the  moment,-most  practicable,  and  most 
possible.  For  my  part,  at  the  present  moment, 
while  keeping  up  perfect  freedom  to  accept  any 
other  measure  that  may  be  suggested  or  may  occur 
to  one's  self,  I  see  nothing  better  in  the  way  of  pro- 
posed legislation  than  the  Permissive  Bill.  Were  I  in 
the  House  of  Commons,  1  should,  in  the  absence  of 
a  better  and  more  comprehensive  measure,  give  it 
my  most  earnest  support.  It  would,  as  the  law  of 
the  land,  do  more  to  remove  temptation  than  any- 
thing else  I  can  conceive  possible  ;  and  what  this 
means  let  all  who  are  influenced  by  temptation  de- 
clare. Those  who  are  not  influenced  need  not  vote: 
they  will  do  no  harm. 

CONCLUSION. 

In  summary: — The  grand  effort  for  us  all  to 
make  is  to  stand  firm,  in  precept  and  example,  by 


3O  The  Action  of  Alcohol  on  the  Body. 

what  is  right,  and  to  proclaim  the  right  without 
dismay  or  fear. 

Once,  while  the  thunder  of  a  great  conqueror 
was  playing  on  a  doomed  city,  there  stood  in  that 
city,  in  calm  repose,  a  poor  scholar  speaking  to  a 
few  earnest  students  words  which,  far  mightier 
than  the  cannon  of  the  conqueror,  penetrated  his 
nation,  lifted  it  up,  and  helped  to  make  it  what  it 
now  is,  the  conqueror  of  the  conqueror.  Let  every 
son  of  temperance  plant  these  words  in  his  mind 
and  heart,  and  he,  too,  shall  conquer  the  conqueror. 

"  To  this  am  I  called  !  to  bear  witness  to  the  truth. 
My  life,  my  fortunes,  are  of  little  moment.  The 
results  of  my  life  are  of  infinite  moment.  I  am  a 
priest  of  Truth.  I  am  in  her  pay.  I  have  bound 
myself  to  do  all  things,  to  venture  all  things,  to 
suffer  all  things  for  her.  If  I  should  be  persecuted 
for  her  sake ;  if  I  should  even  meet  death  in  her 
service ;  what  great  thing  shall  I  have  done  ?  What 
but  that  which  1  clearly  ought  to  do  ?  " 


THE 


ACTION   OF   ALCOHOL 


THE    MIND. 


THE 

ACTION    OF  ALCOHOL 

ON 

THE  MIISTD.* 


I  AM  tired  of  hearing1  the  sound  of  my  own  voice 
on  this  all-absorbing  topic — the  action  of  alcohol 
on  the  living  body ;  and  when  I  recall  the  fact  that 
every  day,  as  certainly  as  it  comes,  brings  to  me  a 
new  invitation  to  hear  myself  and  to  be  heard  again, 
I  feel  what  an  indulgent  auditory  the  British  public 
must  needs  be.  At  the  same  time,  I  can  not  conceal, 
and  no  friend  of  true  temperance  could  wish  to  con- 
ceal, an  inward  and  deep  satisfaction  in  the  fact  that 
so  many  perso/is  are  asking  for  new  light  and  more 
light  on  this  great  subject.  Neither,  when  the  ex- 
tent of  the  subject  comes  under  review,  is  there 
any  cause  for  wonder  that  so  much  repetition  of 
statement,  from  those  who  are  the  foremost  advo- 
cates of  temperance,  should  be  called  for. 

The  advocates  are  few,  they  may  be  counted  by 
their  fifties.  The  inquirers  are  numerous,  they  may 
be  counted  by  their  millions. 

Personal  considerations,  therefore,  put  aside,  I 


*  An  Address  delivered  at  a  meeting  of  the  Cambridge  Church 
Temperance  Association,  and  the  Cambridge  University  Tem- 
perance Union. 

(33) 


34  The  Action  of  Alcohol 

rejoice  in  the  call  even  for  repetition  of  statement, 
because  the  demand  indicates  an  awakening  feeling 
which  is  of  the  happiest  omen.  When  millions  oi 
people  had  to  be  converted  to  temperance  in  the 
face  of  opposition  on  all  sides,  the  labor  looked  dis- 
mal enough.  Now  that  the  opposition  is  melting 
away,  and  the  millions  are  earnestly  seeking  for  the 
knowledge  which  leads  to  conversion,  the  labor, 
heavy  and  severe  still,  is  edged  with  brightness. 

Therefore,  on  the  whole,  I  am  glad  to  have  occa- 
sion to  speak  again.  I  am  specially  glad  to  speak 
in  this  place,  and,  considering  where  I  speak  from,  I 
will  try  to- repeat  myself  as  little  as  possible.  With 
this  intent,  it  will  be  well  for  me  to  endeavor  to 
present  to  you  a  side  of  the  alcohol  question  which 
has  not,  as  yet,  been  dwelt  on  in  so  special  a  man- 
ner as  it  deserves. 

MEMS.    ON  PHYSICAL  ACTION  OF  ALCOHOL. 

In  my  address  delivered  last  year  in  the  Shel- 
donian  Theatre,  at  Oxford,  I  spoke*  almost  exclu- 
sively on  the  facts  connected  with  the  action  of 
alcohol  on  the  body.  It  seems  to  me  befitting  if 
on  the  present  occasion  I  touch  more  particularly 
on  the  facts  connected  with  the  action  of  alcohol  on 
the  mind.  Before,  however,  I  pass  to  this  particular 
topic,  it  may  be  advisable  to  epitomize  the  matter 
of  the  Oxford  essay,  so  that  those,  and  they  must 
be  many  here,  who  have  not  read  that  essay,  may 
follow  the  present  argument  dealing  with  mental 
phenomena,  from  the  argument  Avhich  was  based 
on  the  study  of  physical  phenomena. 

In  that  essay  I  endeavored  to  show,  from  the  ex 


On  the  Mind.  35 

perimental  evidence  I  had  previously  collected,  that 
alcohol,  when  it  finds  its  way  into  the  living  body, 
interferes  with  the  oxidation  of  the  blood ;  that  it 
interferes  with  the  natural  motion  of  the  heart ;  that 
it  produces  a  paralyzing  effect  on  the  minute  cir- 
culation of  the  blood  at  the  point  of  the  circulation 
where  the  quantity  of  blood  admissible  into  the  tis- 
sues ought  to  be  duly  regulated ;  that  habitually 
used  in  what  some — indeed,  the  majority  of  those 
who  indulge  in  alcoholic  drinks — consider  a  moder- 
ate quantity,  it  impedes  the  digestive  power;  that 
it  induces  organic  changes  ending  in  organic  dis- 
ease of  vital  organs,  such  as  the  liver  and  kidney ; 
that  it  leads  to  similar  changes  in  the  great  nervous 
centers,  and  to  destruction  of  nervous  function,  end- 
ing in  paralysis. 

I  further  indicated,  in  the  address  to  which  I  re- 
fer, that  alcohol  has  no  claim  whatever  to  be  con- 
sidered a  supporter  of  the  animal  temperature,  and 
no  claim  whatever  to  be  thought  a  supporter  of 
muscular  power.  On  the  contrary,  that,  from  the 
moment  a  physiological  effect  is  produced  in  the 
body  by  alcohol  and  onwards,  so  long  as  the  effect 
is  kept  up  by  the  addition  of  the  agent  to  the  body, 
the  animal  heat,  the  nervous  control  over  the  mus- 
cles, and  the  independent  power  resident  in  the 
muscles  themselves,  begin  and  continue  to  decline, 
until  at  last  the  body,  cold  and  senseless,  falls  to  the 
ground,  checked  only  by  its  own  utter  helplessness, 
and,  as  it  were,  living  death,  from  imbibing  the  last 
drops  that  would  make  the  death  absolute.  From 
all  Ihese  facts  I  reasoned  that  alcohol  could  not,  in 
any  sense  whatever,  be,  scientifically,  set  down  as  a 


36  The  Action  of  Alcohol 

food  for  man  or  any  other  animal ;  that  it  could  not 
be  set  down  as  a  necessity  for  man  or  any  other  ani- 
mal ;  that,  useless  as  a  food,  it  is  mischievous  as  a 
luxury ;  and  that,  indulged  in  as  a  luxury,  it  is  far 
too  dangerous  a  destroyer  to  be  entrusted  to  the 
general  management  of  mankind,  or  to  the  hands 
of  those  who,  because  of  its  luxurious  temptations, 
fell  under  its  power. 

At  the  present  time  very  few  persons  are  inclined 
to  contend  against  these  propositions.  There  are 
some  who  are  strongly  inclined  to  qualify  them,  and 
who,  under  the  desire  to  please  the  multitude  by 
supplying  it  with  excuses  for  retaining  an  old-estab- 
lished luxury,  are  ready  to  find,  or  rather  to  invent, 
excuses  for  it.  The  falsity  of  the  excuses  is  pretty 
generally  felt,  even  if  it  is  not  avowed,  and  it  is  a 
pretension  which  none  who  know  the  weakness  of 
human  nature  are  surprised  to  see  advanced. 

EXTRA-NEEDS  ARGUMENTS  FOR  ALCOHOL. 

The  whole  defense  of  alcohol  rests  indeed  now  on 
what  is  called  the  extra  needs  of  man  as  a  thinking 
and  reasoning  being,  as  a  something  more  than  a 
mere  animal.  The  arguments  that  are  adduced  on 
this  score  run  somewhat  in  the  following  order: 

i.  Alcohol,  it  is  admitted,  may  not  truly  be  a  food 
in  the  gross  and  economical  meaning  of  the  term. 
It  may  not  supply  any  structure-forming  material; 
it  may  not  yield  any  force  for  the  movements  of  the 
body ;  but  it  is  nevertheless  a  stimulus,  and,  in  so  far, 
a  food  for  the  mind.  The  lower  animals  do  not  want 
it — are,  in  fact,  without  any  shadow  of  a  doubt,  bet« 
ter  without  it.  But  then,  they  have  no  mental  de- 


On  the  Mind.  37 

pressions  and  exultations  like  man.  They  feel  none 
of  that  tension  of  mind  which  man  feels  in  this  toil- 
ing, struggling  age,  and  which  is  doubly  required 
to  meet  the  exigencies ;  to  meet  the  extra  work ;  to 
enable  the  mind  to  work  at  a  push,  to  quicken  the 
flow  of  thought,  to  impel  the  pen,  to  push  the  pen- 
cil, to  stimulate  the  speech,  to  guide  the  hand.  The 
writer  who  must,  by  a  stern  necessity,  prepare  a 
leader  by  four  o'clock  in  the  morning  on  the  debate 
that  had  just  closed ;  the  artist  who  must,  by  a 
stern  necessity,  finish  his  long-delayed  master-piece 
before  that  terrible  first  week  in  April ;  the  orator 
lecturer,  preacher,  player,  singer,  who  must  appear 
before  his  audience  at  some  inevitable  hour;  the 
surgeon  who  must  perform  with  unflinching  skill 
some  surgical  operation  ;  the  engineer  who  must  do 
some  daring  deed  of  experiment  or  practice — these 
men — so  runs  the  argument — what  are  all  these  to 
do  in  their  great  emergencies  if  they  be  not  sup- 
plied with  the  stimulus  to  exertion  which  alcohol 
supplies?  Let  it  be  granted  that  the  stimulus  is 
bad.  Is  it  not  a  necessity  ?  That  is  the  question. 
2.  Alcohol,  it  is  admitted,  may  not  be  a  food,  but 
it  is  still  necessary  for  another  class  of  men  :  for  men 
who  are  of  excessive  nervous  temperament,  and 
who  are  too  anxious  and  fearful  about  themselves  to 
venture  to  leave  off  what  they  have  been  long  ac- 
customed to  receive  and  accept  as  a  necessary  part 
of  their  daily  subsistence.  The  reasoners  on  the 
value  of  alcohol  to  the  mind  will  agree  readily 
enough  with  the  statement  that  the  wretched  people 
who,  upon  being  cast  into  prison,  are  suddenly  cut 
off  from  all  stimu.a'.Hs,  suffer  no  injury  from  the  de- 


38  The  Action  of  Alcohol 

privation.  But,  they  add,  "these  men  and  women 
of  whom  we  speak  are  not  prisoners;  they  are  not 
of  the  same  stolid,  hopeless,  sensual  class;  they  are 
more  susceptible  to  sudden  changes,  and  the  dread 
of  deprivation  and  the  sense  of  deprivation  is  there- 
fore exceptionally  severe,  so  severe  it  can  not  be 
borne."  What,  then,  are  all  these  to  do  ?  It  may 
be  true  that  alcohol  does  them  some  harm.  Is  it 
not,  however,  a  necessity  ?  That  is  the  question. 

3.  Alcohol,  it  is  admitted,  may  not  be  a  food,  but 
there  are  men  and  women  who,  by  steady  practice, 
have  attained  such  an  appetite  for  it,  such  a  liking 
for  it,  that  they  can  not  by  any  effort  do  without  it. 
They  can  not  touch  food  with  any  sense  or  desire 
for  it  without  alcohol.     The  food  is  insipid  unless  it 
is  spiced  with  alcohol.  The  food  will  not  digest  un- 
less it  be  commingled  in  the  stomach  with  alcohol. 
Life  feels  a  burden  unless  it  be  enlightened  and  en- 
livened by  alcohol.     Life  is  not  worth  having  unless 
it  be  cheered,  and,  for  a  time,  at  all  events,  made 
passable  by  the  sweet  stimulus.     If  these  for  a  time 
attempt  to  abstain,  the  merest  sight  of  their  old 
friend  renews  their  desire  and  rekindles  their  love. 
They  are  like  Robinson  Crusoe's  man  Friday,  who 
found  the  flesh   of  goats  sustaining  enough,  but 
hankered  to  fall  back  on  cannibal  fare  when  he  un- 
earthed a  dead  enemy.     What  are  all  these  to  do? 
Alcohol  most  probably  does  them  harm.*  Is  it  not 
a  necessity  ?     That  is  the  question. 

4.  It  is  admitted  that  alcohol  may  not  be  a  food, 
but  there  are  multitudes  of  persons  who,  under- 
standing nothing  accurately  on  this  point,  are  de- 
termined not  to  alter  their  opinions  as  to  the  uses 


On  the  Mind.  39 

or  pleasures  of  alcoholic  indulgence  by  reason  of 
any  new  fact  or  suggestion.  They  have  known  the 
use  of  alcohol  all  their  lives:  their  fathers  and  fore- 
fathers knew' the  use  of  it.  They  have  become  so 
habituated  to  the  filling  and  mixing  and  emptying 
of  glasses,  the  drawing  of  corks,  the  turning  of 
taps,  the  holding-up  of  liquors  to  the  light,  the 
wishing  good  healths,  the  tasting  of  samples,  and 
the  talking  of  vintages,  that,  in  the  absence  of  such 
automatic  contrivances,  they  could  have  no  satis- 
faction or  pleasure  of  existence.  They  have  known 
people  who  have  drunk  freely  every  day  of  life,  and 
have  lived  notwithstanding  to  an  extreme  old  age. 
To  depart  from  the  drinking  of  alcohol  is  to  break 
up  a  fine  old  social  custom,  to  reduce  hospitality, 
to  lessen  the  capability  of  expending  a  good  income 
in  a  free  and  generous  way,  to  injure  the  interests 
of  important  commercial  communities,  to  cast  away 
as  useless  the  great  gifts  of  nature,  and  to  condemn 
a  good  practice  because,  like  all  good  things,  it  is 
open  to  abuse  by  the  reckless  and  unwise.  What 
are  all  these  to.  do  ?  Alcohol  may  have  a  bad  side. 
Is  it  not  to  them  a  necessity  ?  That  is  the  question, 
5.  It  is  admitted  that  alcohol  may  not  be  a  food, 
but  is  it  not  a  luxury  which  at  certain  festive  sea- 
sons may  be  enjoyed  and  c<ren  used  with  some  ad- 
vantage? This  argument  has  more  than  once 
been  placed  before  me,  and  it  is  a  favorite  argu- 
ment of  a  select  few  who,  following  in  the  wake  of  Sir 
Walter  Raleigh,  insist  that  wine  should  now,  as  of 
old,  do  no  more  than  minister  to  the  feast.  On  such 
occasions  it  should  be  taken  just  to  make  glad  the 
heart,  no  more.  The  joyous  feasters  should  learn 

(7) 


4O  The  Action  of  Alcohol 

the  true  bounds  of  safety.  Thereby  they  are  forti. 
fied,  and  are  taught  by  their  principle  to  obey  a 
higher  law  than  those  obey  who,  weakly  apprehen- 
sive of  danger  of  excess,  must  abstain  altogether. 
Better  is  it  to  face  and  wrestle  with  and  conquer 
an  evil  than  fly  from  it  meanly.  Those  who  meet 
to  be  merry  must  have  something  that  will  excite 
to  merriment.  What  are  they  to  do?  Alcohol 
may  not  in  the  end  bg  good  for  them.  But,  for 
their  passing  hour,  is  it  not  a  necessity  ?  That  is 
the  question. 

6.  Alcohol  may  not,  it  is  admitted,  be  a  food  ; 
but  is  it  not  true  that  there  is  a  natural,  instinctive 
desire,  if  not  for  alcohol,  at  least  for  some  equiva- 
lent substance?  This  is  an  argument  which  many 
adduce  and  insist  on  as  an  article  of  belief.  There 
is  no  tribe,  say  men  of  this  school,  there  is  no  tribe 
so  savage  but  that  it  has  its  stimuhnt  of  some  kind. 
The  Turk  takes  his  opium ;  the  native  of  Kam- 
schatka  his  amanatine ;  the  East  Indian  his  hasch- 
ish  ;  the  Styrian  his  arsenic ;  the  Mexican  his 
agave  ;  the  Indian  of  the  Andes  his  yerba  de  nuac- 
ca ;  the  primitive  West  Indian,  whom  Columbus 
himself  discovered,  his  tabac.  Is  such  an  instinct, 
so  universally  and  yet  so  diversely  spread,  to  be 
ignored  ?  What  are  people  possessed  of  such  an 
instinct  to  do  without  alcohol  ?  Is  it  not  to  them 
a  necessity  ?  That  is  the  question. 

In  adducing  these  arguments  in  favor  of  alcohol 
from-  the  psychological  side  of  the  alcohol  question, 
I  am  doing  no  more  than  repeat  what  is  almost 
daily  spoken  to  me  on  the  subject.  I  might  with 
perfect  correctness  introduce  much  more  argument 

(5) 


On  the  Mind.  41 

on  the  same  side.  I  might, bring  forward  the  ex- 
pressions  of  those  very  numerous  persons  who  pro- 
test against  any  abstaining  reformation  at  all,  be- 
cause such  reformation  would  check  and  restrain 
by  example  and  social  influence  their  own  gratifi- 
cations. I  might  bring  forward  the  expressions  of 
the  great  indifferent  on  this  question,  who  want  to 
know  what  the  noise  is  all  about,  and  ask  what  it 
can  signify  to  them  whether  a  little  more  madness, 
a  little  more  crime,  a  little  more  disease,  a  little 
more  want,  a  few  more  sins  of  all  kinds  all  used  in 
each  degree,  should  stand  revealed  as  due  to  one 
prevailing,  and,  by  consent  of  ages,  all  but  univer- 
sally recognized  instrument  ?  Why  should  such 
unpleasant  subjects  be  disinterred,  making  day,  as 
well  as  night,  hideous? 

These  and  others  I  shall  let  alone,  that  I  may 
bestow  more  time  on  worthier  objects:  on  those 
who  have  something  more  than  base  selfishness  of 
nature  to  inspire  them  ;  on  those  who,  in  the  many 
modes  I  have  recorded,  feel  that  they  have,  at  the 
bottom  of  their  resistance  to  abstaining  temper- 
ance, the  serious  argument  of  necessity. 

ARGUMENTS  CONTROVERTED. 
Touching,  then,  the  first  class  of  argument — the 
argument  which  declares  for  the  necessity  of  alco- 
holic stimulation  on  the  ground  of  the  necessity  of 
stimulus  to  feed  forced  growth  of  thought — the 
reply  is  as  direct  as  need  be.  The  argument  is 
rotten  even  on  its  own  basis.  Forced  growth  of 
thought  is  itself  a  cankered  growth,  a  fungus  which 
springs  up  in  the  night  to  die  and  dry  away  in  the 


42  The  Action  of  Alcohol 

morning,  su.king  before  the  light.  Life  in  its  full- 
ness is  such  an  ephemeron  it  is  hardly  possible  to  ex- 
tract more  than  one  or  two  really  good  things  out  of 
a  devotion  extended  to  them  through  all  the  active 
stages  of  the  ephemeron.  What,  then,  can  be  the 
true  value  of  that  work  which  is  forced  to  the  ex- 
tent of  striving  to  do  something  of  tasting  influence 
each  day  of  life,  and  which,  failing  to  do  what  it  aims 
at  by  natural  means,  mainly  seeks  for  aid  from 
that  which  is  unnatural,  wearing,  wasting,  wanton, 
wasteful  ?  In  mental,  as  in  physical  action,  wanton 
waste  makes  woful  want. 

But,  setting  aside  this  basic  reason  against  de- 
velopment of  thought  by  means  of  stimulation  from 
alcohol,  there  is  another  falseness,  in  the  actual  re- 
sults of  forced  work  on  the  worker.  The  man  who 
is  driven  headlong  against  invisible,  all-resistant 
time,  is  actually  not  aided  by  the  process  of  stimu- 
lation. If  I  reduce  the  pendulum  correction  or  the 
regulating  movement  of  a  clock  or  watch,  I  make 
the  instrument  seem  to  tell  the  hours  faster  and 
seem  to  do  more  work.  But  I  know  it  does  not 
tell  the  hours  so  correctly  as  it  would  do  if  I  let  it 
work  properly  balanced — that  it  does  not  do  more 
work  unless  it  be  more  frequently  wound  up,  and 
that,  made  to  do  more  work  by  more  frequent 
windings  up,  it  wears  out  and  becomes  an  old  and 
useless  watch  so  much  the  faster.  It  is  precisely 
the  same  with  respect  to  the  body.  If,  by  reduc- 
ing the  balancing  power  of  the  vessels  which  reg- 
ulate the  supply  of  the  blood  to  my  brain,  I  permit 
a  mere  rapid  current  of  blood  to  feed  my  brain,  I 
may  for  a  time  think  more  rapidly  and  express 


On  the  Mind.  43 

myself  with  more  apparent  energy.  It  is  clear, 
however,  that  under  these  circumstances  I  do  but 
exhaust  more  quickly,  require  to  be  wound  up 
more  frequently,  and  wear  out  more  speedily. 

Nay,  something  worse  than  all  this  actually  oc- 
curs to  those  who  seek  for  mental  vigor  in  the  pro- 
cess of  releasing  the  balance  of  supply  of  blood  to 
the  centers  of  thought.  When  the  brain  is  in  the 
whirl  of  rapid  thought,  induced  by  alcohol,  or  in- 
duced, indeed,  by  any  mode  of  excitement,  there 
soon  comes  a  time  when  the  very  rapidity  of  motion 
is  a  cause  of  obscurity.  The  rapidity  of  nervous 
action  is  rebuked  by  negation  of  result.  As  in  a 
"  wheel  of  time,"  when  the  motion  of  the  wheel  is 
moderate,  we  discern  clearly  different  colors,  but 
see  them  all  in  one  single  color  when  the  motion  is 
increased,  so  in  the  wheel  of  thought,  when  it  spins 
too  rapidly,  imagination,  fact,  memory,  judgment, 
feeling,  order,  expression — all  these  primitive  at- 
tributes, which  make  up  the  spectrum  of  the  mind 
— run  into  each  other,  causing  confused  ideas, 
meaningless  labor,  irritable  exhaustion. 

I  record  these  results  as  matter  of  daily  experi- 
ence in  observation  of  men.  Men  are  as  much  ob- 
servable phenomena  as  less  animate  things,  if  you 
will  but  carefully  observe  them.  Minds  can  be 
read  as  well  as  bodies  by  any  skilled  observer  who 
will  take  the  trouble  to  learn  the  method  of  read- 
ing, and  will  steadily  maintain  the  practice.  And 
the  result  of  such  accumulated  experience  is  that 
those  men  who,  in  this  sadly  oppressed  age,  do 
most  work,  best  work,  soundest  work,  hardest 
work,  and,  in  the  end,  quickest  work,  are  the  men 


44  The  Action  of  Alcohol 

who,  avoiding  stimulants  under  all  contingencies 
and  pressures,  trust  to  rest  and  natural  food  for  the 
power  that  is  required  to  carry  them  most  safely 
through  the  ordeal. 

Yet  another  side  of  this  reply  to  the  argument 
of  necessity, now  before  us.  The  result  of  accumu- 
lated experience  shows  that  they  who,  by  stimula- 
tion, force  the  growth  of  thought ;  they  who  daily 
relax  the  vascular  control  over  their  centers  of 
thought ;  they  who  reduce  that  unconscious  grasp 
which  Nature,  all-wise  and  wonderful,  has  placed 
in  automatic  concealment,  and  out  of  the  capricious 
control  of  our  constantly-changing  wills ;  that  they 
who  indirectly  defy  Nature  in  this  her  imperative 
rule  for  healthy  life,  pay  the  forfeit  for  their  temerity 
or  ignorance.  These  are  the  men  who  breakup, 
at  their  work;  these  are  the  men  whose  suns  go 
down  at  noon  ;  these  are  the  men  dying  in  this  day 
at  a  rate  alarming  to  contemplate.  These  are  the 
men  of  whom  it  so  often  is  said,  "  Whom  the  gods 
love  die  young."  Pernicious  falsehood  !  Whom 
the  gods  love  die  old ;  live  out  in  usefulness  and 
happiness  their  allotted  circle ;  die  without  rending 
the  hearts  of  any  by  unnatural  strain  of  sorrow ; 
die  as  they  sleep,  knowing  nothing  of  the  pain  and 
conscious  bitterness  of  death. 

For  the  work  that  comes  of  the  mind  and  that 
comes  out  under  pressure  no  taste  of  alcoholic 
stimulation  is  necessary.  Every  such  taste  is  a 
self-inflicted  injury,  and,  what  is  more,  an  accumu- 
lating injury.  The  dose  of  alcohol  which  spurred 
the  thought  of  to-day  must  be  slightly  increased  to 
spur  the  thought  of  to-morrow  to  the  same  pitch. 


On  the  Mind.  45 

So  on  and  on  the  evil  goes,  until  at  last  the  simple, 
and,  as  it  was  called,  harmless  dose,  rises  to  the 
poisonous  dose  ;  until,  with  unnerved  limbs,  falter- 
ing  memory,  dulled  imagination,  estranged  feeling, 
enfeebled  or  even  dismantled  reason,  the  victim 
falls.  Of  all  men,  brain-workers  are  the  men  least 
able  to  bear  up  against  the  ravages  of  alcohol.  Of 
all  men  they  are  the  most  liable  to  be  deceived  and 
played  upon  by  this  traitor,  who  enters  the  most 
precious  treasury,  the  citadel  of  the  mind.  I  hold 
that  man  as  prematurely  mad  who  defends  the  use 
of  alcohol  for  himself  on  this  ground  of  necessity. 
I  hold  that  man  as  criminally  mad  who,  knowingly, 
prescribes  alcohol  on  this  foundation. 

Touching  the  second  class  of  men  to  whom  I 
have  referred — those  who  are  nervously  affected  in 
favor  of  alcohol  and  who  fear  to  abstain — the  argu- 
ment that  requires  to  be  applied  is  of  an  assuring 
rather_than  of  a  disputative  character.  The  influ- 
ence of  alcohol  on  natures  of  this  class  is  exceed- 
ingly potent,  and,  as  it  happens  that  such  natures 
are  often  conscientiously  sensitive,  and  charged 
with  desires  to  act  rightly,  they  become  exceed- 
ingly difficult  to  assure.  If  these  feel,  as  is  com- 
monly the  case,  that  the  constant  taking  of  alcohol 
is  doing  them  an  injury,  that  the  enemy  is  becom- 
ing more  necessary  to  their  support,  and  is  also  do- 
ing them  physical  wrong,  they  for  a  time  discard 
him.  So  soon  as  they  give  abstinence  a  trial,  how- 
ever, the  void  they  experience  is  most  painful  to 
them,  and  a  real  anxiety.  Then  every  symptom 
they  experience,  from  whatever  cause,  they  at- 
tribute to  abstinence.  Symptoms  which  they 


46  The  Action  of  Alcohol 

often  experienced  before,  they  now  attribute  to 
abstinence.  They  know  also  that  they  are 
making  an  experiment  which  places  them  under 
the  marked  observation  of  their  relatives  and 
friends,  and  every  adverse  remark  is  another  cause 
of  fear  and  dismay.  When  they  have  to  perform  a 
special  and  painful  duty,  for  which  they  have 
previously  been  accustomed  to  fo  ~t  fy  themselves 
by  a  glass  or  two  of  wine,  they  miss  the  stimulus 
with  a  feeling  of  positive  terror  as  to  the  result  of 
such  temerity.  I  have  known  a  clergyman  in  this 
state  who  felt  he  must  actually  die  in  the  pulpit  if 
he  omitted  the  glass  of  sherry  with  which  he  was 
long  accustomed  to  charge  himself  before  leaving 
the  vestry.  I  have  kno>vn  a  doctor  dread  the 
orcleal  of  a  serious  professional  duty  in  the  absence 
of  the  usual  artificial  provocative  to  action. 

In  these  states  of  mind  many  abstainers,  during 
their  novitiate,  go  to  consult  their  medical  adviser, 
and  put  such  a  case  before  him  that  he  is  led  to 
sympathize  with  them,  and,  if  he  be  not  fully  con- 
versant with  the  position,  to  suggest  to  them  that 
they  should  return  to  alcohol  forthwith.  They 
now  return  to  the  old  path,  backed,  as  they  say,  by 
medical  opinion  and  advice.  They  declare  for 
themselves,  and  others  declare  for  them,  that  in 
their  case  total  abstinence  has  proved  a  total  fail- 
ure, and  thereupon  the  cause  receives  a  blow  which 
is  as  mischievous  as  it  is  unjust. 

I  admit  freely  that  it  is  a  most  difficult  thing  to 
treat  this  mental  state.  It  is  so  purely  mental  that 
it  baffles  the  most  careful  treatment.  If  the  phy- 
sician meet  it  by  prescribing  alcohol,  as  alcohol  it 


On  the  Mind.  47 

self  pure  and  simple,  in  effective  doses,  he  even 
then  may  not  succeed.  The  mind  of  the  affected 
will  not  care  for  alcohol  in  that  form,  but  for  the 
one  particular  form  of  wine,  of  brandy,  or  whisky 
to  which  it  is  habituated.'  In  fact,  the  physician  is 
combating  a  moral  derangement,  and  his  dilemma 
is  most  trying.  If  he  maintain  the  soundness  of 
the  principle  of  abstinence,  and  give  every  assur- 
ance of  safety,  he  often  fails  in  carrying  conviction, 
since  h©  is  arguing  with  the  most  subtle  and  obsti- 
nate of  human  frailties — fear.  If  he  give  way  and 
yield  his  assent  to  the  return  to  the  assumed  pro- 
tecting and  sustaining  enemy,  he  constantly  gives 
up  his  too  willing  patient  to  the  danger  of  further 
encroachment,  to  confirmed  adhesion  to  danger, 
and  to  certain  injury. 

And  yet,  ladies  and  gentlemen,  in  these  cases,  in 
all  but  the  most  exceptional  instances  due  to  physi- 
cal disease,  the  course  to  be  insisted  on  is,  after  all, 
clear,  and  that  course  is  to  enforce  the  abstinence. 
Nothing  is  wanting  but  time  to  assure  and  sustain 
the  most  nervous  and  timid  nature  in  the  absolute 
safety  and  advantage  of  abstinence.  In  a  few  weeks 
there  is  hope ;  in  a  few  months  there  is  victory.  A 
few  repetitions  of  trials  of  strength  without  alcohol 
confirm  the  effort,  and  with  the  certain  confirma- 
tion the  new  habit  of  self-trust  and  confidence  be- 
comes the  natural  condition.  Like  one  who,  hav- 
ing learned  to  swim,  has  given  up  the  belt  or  other 
artificial  support,  and  wonders  why  he  ever  needed 
such  unnecessary  assistance,  so  the  perfected  ab- 
stainer  wonders  why  he  ever  required  s  MSta'.mment 
from  alcohol. 


48  The  Action  of  Alcohol 

Touching  the  mental  condition  of  those  who  arc 
held  to  alcohol  by  the  tie  of  appetite  for  it  and 
fondness  for  the  surreptitious  cheeriness  which  it 
seems  to  impart,  the  same  kind  of  argument  against 
the  indulgence  applies  as  does  to  the  condition  of 
the  timorous.  Indeed,  the  two  conditions  are  not 
infrequently  in  combination  in  the  same  person. 
It  must,  however,  be  said  of  them  in  whom  the  lik- 
ing is  strongly  developed  that  they  are  almost  in- 
variably in  actual  danger.  They  have  become  the 
slaves  of  the  tyrant.  They  tell  you  with  mock 
triumph,  what  their  own  hearts  assure  them  is  false, 
that  they  prefer  to  live  a  shorter  life  if  it  be  but 
merrier.  In  this  stage  they  are  just  on  the  verge 
of  that  mental  incapacity,  by  physical  disorganiza- 
tion, from  which  nothing  but  total  abstinence  can 
save  them.  Most  commonly  they  sink  deeper  and 
deeper,  and  die  from  organic  disease. 

Touching  the  fourth  and  fifth  classes  of  persons 
to  whom  I  directed  attention — those  who  hold  to 
alcoholic  drinks  with  automatic  consistency  and 
prejudice  of  custom,  and  those  who  hold  to  them 
as  a  means  for  mere  recreative  gratification — their 
mental  condition  is  of  a  kind  that  can  only  be 
reached  by  clear  and  often-repeated  statements  of 
the  truth  respecting  alcohol.  Many  of  this  class 
are  acting  simply  under  the  impulse  of  ignorance, 
or  the  feeling  of  good  nature,  and  though  they  are 
slavish  to  prejudice,  they  are  not  inaccessible  to  rea- 
son. These  have  to  be  educated,  the  first  by  a 
long,  the  second  by  a  short  course,  and  they  are 
now  being  educated  hour  by  hour  and  day  by  day. 
This  fact  is  apparent  in  every  phase  of  social  life, 


On  the  Mind.  49 

At  the  dinner-table  wine  is  no  longer  pertinaciously 
and  almost  vulgarly  forced  on  every  guest,  as  once 
it  was ;  neither  is  every  total  abstainer  a  marked 
man,  to  be  made  the  unhappy  victim  of  rude  jest 
because  of  his  conscientious  determination  to  live 
according  to  natural  rule.  The  atrocious  calumny 
against  Nature  that  she  sent  wine  for  the  use  of 
man  is  certainly  less  frequently  declared  ;  and  the 
idea  that  men  who  do  not  drink  can  not  be  merry 
of  the  merriest,  as  well  as  wise  of  the  wisest,  is  be- 
ing so  determinately  corrected  by  practical  ob- 
servations as  to  be  passing  into  ignorant  badinage. 

Still,  much  information  has  to  be  instilled  into  the 
masses  before  a  true  and  proper  frame  of  mind  is 
acquired  in  respect  to  alcohol,  socially  considered. 
That  terrible  habit  of  false  hospitality  which  pre- 
sumes that  a  man  has  not  done  by  his  neighbor  as 
he  would  be  done  by  until  he  has  asked  him  "  what 
he  will  drink,"  sadly  needs  reforming.  The  insane 
idea  that  every  new  task  and  every  renewed  rest 
must  be  supplemented  and  complemented  by  a 
glass  of  something  strong,  sadly  needs  reforming. 
That  equally  insane  practice  of  transacting  every 
bit  of  business  by  a  preliminary  draught  of  the 
great  mental  disqualifier  for  all  business,  most 
solemnly  calls  for  reformation.  The  notion  that 
everybody  who  is  ailing  or  exhausted  must  at  once 
be  dosed  with  some  stiff  cordial,  has  to  be  banished 
not  only  from  the  heart,  but  from  the  mind.  For 
these  reforms  we  can  only  wait,  and  teach,  and  re- 
cast a  mental  constitution  which,  erring  only  from 
the  heart,  admits  of  definite  improvement. 

Touching,   lastly,   the    argument   of  those  who 


5O  The  Action  of  Alcohol 

maintain  that  the  desire  for  alcohol  rests  on  an  in- 
stinctive basis,  the  reply  is  easy.  The  historical 
evidence  which  is  adduced  in  favor  of  the  instinct- 
ive view  breaks  down  on  all  fours.  There  have 
been  nations  which  have  never  shown  the  instinct 
described.  The  lower  animals,  which  are  mainly 
instinctive,  have  never  shown  the  instinct.  Those 
nations  which  have  exhibited  a  predilection  for 
some  foreign  agent  influencing  the  natural  life  have 
exhibited  no  consistent  method  of  selection  of  such 
an  agent.  Some  have  used  a  stimulant ;  others  a 
pure  narcotic  ;  others  a  direct  mental  depressant. 
All  have  taken,  by  mere  accident  of  place  and 
mode  of  life,  the  agent  which  they  have  introduced 
into  common  usage.  Ail,  moreover,  who  have  thus 
temporized  with  life  have  been  but  as  the  children 
of  the  world,  whose  childish  instincts  in  matter  of 
cooking,  of  dwelling,  of  fighting,  of  playing,  the 
most  rabid  alcoholic  advocate  would  scarcely  care 
to  follow.  In  short,  this  argument  of  instinct  is 
mere  excuse  for  sake  of  excuse,  and  when  it  is  tried 
by  the  facts  of  current  experience,  with  or  without 
the  history  of  the  past,  it  is  nowhere.  The  present 
experience,  and  I  believe  the  most  ancient  experi- 
ence also,  is  clear  as  daylight — viz.,  that  the  habit 
of  drinking  all  strong  drinks  is  an  acquired  habit ; 
that  all  young  children  instinctively  dislike  such 
drinks  and  shrink  from  them  ;  that  much  training 
is  required  to  beget  the  liking  for  any  one  drink; 
and  that  no  alcoholic  scholar  is  ever  so  accom- 
plished as  to  accept  every  drink  with  equal  favor. 
What  is  more,  it  is  obvious  not  only  that  Nature 
has  provided  no  instinct  in  any  young  animal  for 


On  the  Mind.  51 

alcohol,  but  that  she  has  not  herself  provided  the 
alcohol  for  the  instinct.  Measured  by  the  perfec- 
tion of  her  other  designs,  and  her  unerring  mode  of 
fitting  one  thing  into  another  when  she  intends 
ooth  to  act  together,  it  is,  I  think,  inconceivable 
that  she  would  have  .forgotten  both  the  instinctive 
desire  for  a  particular  agent,  as  well  as  the  agent 
itself,  if  she  had  designed  that  man  should  require 
Che  agent  either  for  his  wants  or  his  pleasures. 

DIRECT  INFLUENCE   OF  ALCOHOL  ON  THE   MIND. 

This  discourse  on  the  action  of  alcohol  on  the 
mind  would  be  incomplete  if  it  did  not  add  some- 
thing respecting  the  direct  influence  of  alcoholic  in- 
dulgence, in  its  various  degrees,  on  the  mental 
powers,  reasoning  and  instinctive.  I  would,  there- 
fore, offer  a  few  concluding  notes  from  derived 
practiced  observation  on  this  point. 

I  think  I  see  three  distinct  effects  of  alcohol  on 
the  mind,  which  effects  I  shall  term  the  supersti- 
tious, the  demonstrative,  and  the  destructive. 
They  are  as  distinct  as  any  of  the  physical  effects 
which  I  have  traced,  and  I  daresay  they  rest  on  a 
physical  basis,  but  they  admit  of  study  and  descrip- 
tion as  mental  phenomena,  apart  from  the  intrica- 
cies of  their  origin. 

The  superstitious  feelings  engendered  or  excited 
by  alcohol  have  the  widest  range.  They  extend  to 
the  whole  of  the  alcohol-drinking  population,  but 
are  usually  most  pronounced  amongst  those  of  the 
population  who  are  most  moderate,  or,  to  use  their 
own  words,  most  strictly  temperate  in  their  habits. 
These,  at  all  events,  express  most  clearly  the  effects 


52  The  Action  of  Alcohol 

I  am  now  denoting.  They  tell  you,  Viith  a  kind  of 
regret,  that  while  they  are  fully  cognizant  of  the 
evils  produced  by  alcohol,  of  the  desolation  pro- 
duced by  it,  the  pity  is  that  such  a  potent  cause'of 
evil  can  not  be  safely  given  up.  They  themselves 
would  give  it  up  if  they  could,  if  they  had  the  reso- 
lution, but  to  them  it  is  so  necessary.  They  can  re- 
duce it  to  any  ridiculously  small  amount,  but  they 
must  have  a  little,  or  they  would  break  down.  I 
was  sitting  at  dinner,  during  the  present  season,  by 
the  side  of  a  gentleman  whose  mind  was  full}'  imbued 
with  this  impression.  "  You  see,"  he  said  to  me, 
"  I  am  almost,  but  not  quite,  of  your  persuasion,  for 
that  is  my  daily  potion  of  wine,  and  that  has  been 
my  potion  for  over  twenty  years."  Thereupon  he 
poured  out  in  a' glass  about  two  ounces  of  a  villain- 
ous compound  which  is  publicly  sold  under  the 
name  of  sherry.  "  Well,"  I  replied,  "  that  is  not 
more  than  from  three  to  four  drachms  of  alcohol. 
It  will,  I  confess,  do  you  neither  good  nor  harm,  be- 
cause there  is  really  not  enough  to  produce  a 
physiological  effect  on  one  of  your  age  and  size." 
4<  Nevertheless,"  said  he,  ''  I  couldn't  do  without  it." 
"What  effect  has  it?"  I  inquired.  "  What  effect, 
for  example,  does  that  which  you  have  just  taken 
produce  ?  "  "  Ah,"  he  responded,  "  this  is  common 
wine,  very  bad  wine  indeed,  and  promises,  I  fear, 
to  give  me  heartburn,  as  bad  wine  always  does;  a 
sort  of  acidity,  I  suppose,  which  such  wine  invaria- 
bly causes  in  me.  Still  I  couldn't  do  without  even 
this.  I  should  miss  something;  I  shouldn't  sleep 
without  it ;  but  what  it  does  for  me  I  really  do  not 
know.  The  worst  it  does  is  the  heartburn  and  that 


On  the  Mind.  53 

is  usual  except  at  my  own  table,  where  I  get  the 
wine  that  I  know  suits  me. "  And  then  he  went  off 
at  a  tangent  to  say  that  it  was  so  sociable  to  be  able 
to  take  a  little  wine;  that  when  you  are  at  Rome 
you  must  do  as  Rome  does ;  that  more  people  in- 
jure themselves  by  eating  than  by  drinking;  that 
this  is  an  artificial  age,  in  which  artificial  means  are 
demanded ;  and  that  il  such  a  magnificent  gift  of 
God  to  man  as  wine — including,  I  suppose,  the 
sherry  which  every  one  at  the  table  was  heartily 
cursing — were  to  be  cast  aside,  what  next  would  be 
tossed  away  and  despised?  As  a  last  and  crushing 
fling,  he  threw  at  me  the  latest  utterances  which 
Mr.  Worldly  Wiseman — I  beg  pardon,  I  mean  Dr. 
Worldly  Wiseman — for  since  I  last  spoke  of  that 
worthy,  I  see  he  has  taken  up  the  doctor's  degree 
in  physic — which  Dr.  Worldly  Wiseman  has  said 
in  a  professional  point  of  view  respecting  alcohol, 
and  from  which  he  deduced  that  a  daily  dose  of 
alcohol  which  would  of  a  certainty  shorten  the  lives 
of  nine-tenths  of  those  who  indulged  in  it  might,  on 
my  own  evidence,  be  taken  with  impunity  as  well 
as  pleasure.  Certainly  he  had  not  read  what  I  had 
written,  but  this  is  what  he  understood,  and  he  be- 
lieved that  some  understood  the  original  facts  of  an 
author  better  than  the  author  did  himself. 

This  is  a  fair  sample  of  the  superstition,  of  the 
firm  belief  in  the  unreal — always  weak,  plausible, 
selfish,  illogical — which  alcohol  excites  in  the  minds 
of  men  and  women  who  are  accustomed  to  its  use. 
The  same  superstition  once  hung  about  charms  and 
amulets,  and  is  hardly  dead  yet.  In  this  superstition 
lies  the  secret  power  of  that  moderation  fallacy  by 


54  The  Action  of  Alcohol 

which  the  public  btxly  is  inoculated  with  the  per- 
sistent plague  of  drunken-mania.  It  is  the  origin 
of  all  the  evil. 

The  demonstrative  effects  of  alcohol  are  shown  in 
the  proceedings  of  those  who  confessedly  or  con- 
cealedly  indulge  in  alcohol  beyond  what  can  be 
called,  in  any  sense,  moderation.  Such  persons  are 
not,  of  necessity,  drunkards  ;  they  may  only  be  free 
in  the  use  of  alcohol,  or  reckless  in  its  use.  But,  as 
if  they  were  so  many  specimens  of  experiment,  they 
are  demonstrations  of  its  effects  on  the  mental  as 
well  as  the  physical  constitution. 

An  analysis  of  the  condition  of  mind  induced  and 
maintained  by  the  free  daily  use  of  alcohol  as  a 
drink,  reveals  a  singular  order  of  facts.  The  mani- 
festation fails  altogether  to  reveal  the  exaltation  of 
any  reasoning  power  in  a  useful  or  satisfactory  di- 
rection. I  have  never  met  with  an  instance  in  which 
such  a  claim  for  alcohol  was  made.  On  the  contrary, 
confirmed  alcoholics  constantly  say  that  for  this  or 
that  work,  requiring  thought  and  attention,  it  is 
necessary  to  forego  some  of  the  usual  potations  in 
order  to  have  a  cool  head  for  hard  work. 

On  the  other  side  the  experience  is  unfortunately 
overwhelming  in  favor  of  the  observation  that  the 
use  of  alcohol  sells  the  reasoning  power,  makes 
weak  men  and  women  the  easy  prey  of  the  wicked 
and  strong,  and  leads  men  and  women  who  should 
know  better  into  every  grade  of  misery  and  vice. 
It  is  not  poor  repenting  Cassio  alone  who  cries  out 
in  agony  of  despair,  "  O,  that  a  man  should  put  an 
enemy  into  his  mouth  to  steal  away  his  brains !  "  It 
is  thousands  upon  thousands  of  Cassios  who  say  the 


On  the  Mind.  55 

same  thought,  if  not  the  same  words,  every  day, 
every  hour.  I  doubt,  indeed,  whether  there  is  a 
single  man  or  woman  who  indulges  or  who  has  in- 
dulged in  alcohol  who  could  not  truthfully  say  the 
same;  who  could  not  wish  that  something  he  had 
unreasonably  said  or  expressed  under  the  excitation 
from  alcohol  had  not  been  given  forth. 

If,  then,  alcohol  enfeebles  the  reason,  what  part 
of  the  mental  constitution  does  it  exalt  and  excite  ? 
It  exalts  and  excites  those  animal,  organic,  emo- 
tional centers  of  mind  which,  in  the  dual  nature  of 
man,  so  often  cross  and  oppose  that  pure  and  ab- 
stract reasoning  nature  which  lifts  man  above  the 
lower  animals,  and,  rightly  exercised,  little  lower 
than  the  angels.  Exciting  these  animal  centers,  it 
lets  loose  all  the  passions,  and  gives  them  more  or 
less  of  unlicensed  domination  over  the  whole  man. 
It  excites  anger,  and  when  it  does  not  lead  to  this 
extreme  it  keeps  the  mind  fretful,  irritable,  dissatis- 
fied, captious.  The  flushed  face  of  the  red-hot  angry 
man,  how  like  it  is  to  the  flushed  face  of  the  man  in 
the  first  stage  of  alcoholic  intoxication.  The  face, 
white  with  rage,  and  the  tremulous,  agitated  mus- 
cles of  the  body,  how  like  both  are  to  the  pale  face 
and  helpless  muscles  of  the  man  deep  in  intoxica- 
tion from  alcohol.  The  states  are  not  simply  simi- 
lar, they  'are  identical,  and  the  one  will  feed  the 
other. 

From  this  same  mode  of  action,  alcohol  admin- 
isters to  the  fears  of  mankind.  The  term  "  pot 
valor,"  vulgar  as  it  is,  how  faithfully  it  expresses 
the  truth.  Before  this  paralyzing  influence  the 
reasoning  power,  which  is  the  essence  of  resource 


56  The  Action  of  Alcohol 

and  effort  and  continuous  endurance,  fails,  and 
then  the  mere  animal,  beset  with  clangers  he  can 
not  see  how  to  escape  from,  sinks  and  falls.  From 
the  same  mode  of  action,  alcohol  increases  and  in- 
tensifies grief,  and  maddens  joy  ;  makes  life  a  wild 
excitement  of  wanton  mirth,  a  deep,  unfathomable 
sea  of  misery.  The  man  who  can  enjoy  no  taste,  no 
sight,  no  sound,  no  light,  no  shade  of  sense  until  he 
is  primed  to  the  perception  by  alcohol,  loses  half  the 
joyousness  and  refinement  of  life.  The  man  who 
takes  into  his  senses  the  outward  nature  with  the 
centers  of  his  mind  clear  for  the  perception,  has  a 
double  life ;  every  perception  is  more  finely  caught 
and  fixed,  every  sensibility  is  more  finely  and  ten- 
derly touched  and  cherished. 

As  men  under  the  chilling  northern  wind  shrink 
and  sink  more  easily  when  they  fly  to  alcohol  for 
false  support,  so  men  under  the  chilling  wind  of 
adversity  shrink  and  sink  more  easily  under  the 
factitious,  tempting  aid  of  the  same  agency.  It  is 
the  eober  in  both  cases,  the  all-abstaining  sober 
who  go  through  both  trials  most  easily,  and  sur 
mount  them  least  impaired. 

And  if  I  were  to  take  you  through  all  the  pas- 
sions that  remain  to  be  named,  love  and  lust,  hate 
and  envy,  avarice  and  pride,  I  should  but  show  you 
that  alcohol  ministers  to  them  all ;  that,  paralyzing 
the  reason,  it  takes  from  off  these  passions  that  fine 
adjustment  of  reason  which  not  only  places  man 
above  the  lower  animals,  but,  when  celestially  at- 
tuned, places  him  little  Tower  than  the  angels. 

The  demonstrative  evidence  of  alcohol  in  its  in- 
fluence on  the  mind  is  then  most  clear.  From  the 


On  the  Mind.  57 

beginning  to  the  end  of  its  influence  it  subdues 
reason  and  sets  free  passion.  The  analogies,  phys- 
ical and  mental,  are  perfect.  That  which  loosens 
the  tension  of  the  vessels  which  feed  the  body 
with  due  order  of  precision,  and  thereby  lets  loose 
the  heart  to  violent  excess  of  unbridled  motion, 
loosens  also  the  reason  and  lets  loose  the  passions. 
In  both  instances  heart  and  head  are  for  a  time  out 
of  harmony  ;  their  balance  broken.  The  man  de- 
scends closer  and  closer  to  the  lower  animals. 
From  the  angels  he  glides  further  and  further 
away. 

The  destructive  effects  of  alcohol  on  the  human 
mind  present,  finally,  the  saddest  picture  of  its  in- 
fluence. The  most  aesthetic  artist  can  find  no  angel 
here.  All  is  animal,  and  animal  of  the  worst  type. 
Memory  irretrievably  lost,  words  and  very  elements 
of  speech  forgotten,  or  words  displaced  to  have  no 
meaning  in  them.  Rage  and  anger  persistent  and 
mischievous,  or  remittent  and  impotent.  Fear  at 
every  corner  of 'life,  distrust  on  every  side,  grief 
merged  into  blank  despair,  hopelessness  into  per- 
manent melancholy.  Surely  no  Pandemonium 
that  ever  poet  dreamt  of  could  equal  that  which 
would  exist  if  all  the  drunkards  of  the  world  were 
driven  into  one  mortal  sphere. 

As  Z  have  moved  among  those  who  are  physi- 
cally stricken  with  alcohol,  and  have  detected 
under  the  various  disguises  of  name  the  fatal  dis- 
eases, the  pains  and  penalties  it  imposes  on  the 
body,  the  picture  has  been  sufficiently  cruel.  But 
even  that  picture  pales  as  I  conjure  up,  without 
any  stretch  of  imagination,  the  devastations  which 


58  The  Action  of  Alcohol  on  the  Mind. 

the  same  agent  inflicts  on  the  mind.  Forty  per 
cent.,  the  learned  superintendent  of  Colney  Hatch, 
Dr.  Shepherd,  tells  us,  forty  per  cent,  of  those  who 
were  brought  into  that  asylum  during  the  year 
1876,  were  so  brought  because  of  the  direct  or  in- 
direct effects  of  alcohol.  If  the  facts  of  all  the 
asylums  were  collected  with"  equal  care,  the  same 
tale  would,  I  fear,  be  told.  What  need  we  further 
to  show  the  destructive  action  of  this  one  instru- 
ment of  destruction  on  the  human  mind?  The 
Pandemonium  of  drunkards :  the  grand  transforma- 
tion scene  of  that  pantomime  of  drink,  which  com- 
mences with  moderation !  Let  it  be  never  more 
forgotten  by  those  who  love  their  fellow-men  until, 
through  their  efforts,  it  is  closed  forever. 


MODERATE  DRINKING. 

FOR  AND   AGAINST. 


MODERATE  DRINKING: 

FOR  AND  AGAINST, 
FROM  SCIENTIFIC  POINTS  OF  VIEW  * 

WHEN  you  are  walking  through  a  sculpture  gal- 
lery, say  in  the  Crystal  Palace,  or  in  the  British 
or  Kensington  Museums,  your  eye  lights  ever  and 
igain  on  some  all  but  living  figure  in  dead  marble 
or  stone.  You  stay  to  look  at  that  voiceless  statue, 
and  as  you  take  in  its  features  you  ask  yourselves : 
If  it  could  only  speak,  what  would  it  tell  ?  If  the 
lips  had  language,  what  tale  would  they  unfold  ? 
I  will  undertake  to  say  that  in  this  audience  there 
is  scarcely  a  man  or  woman  who  has  not  expe- 
rienced this  sensation.  It  is,  in  a  secret  kind  ol 
way,  the  spring  of  the  fascination  that  fixed  you  to 
look  and  admire. 

Your  minds  are  in  this  manner  brought  into 
communion  with  many  faces  and  figures,  and  as 
they  can  not  reply  to  your  mental  inquiries,  you 
answer  for  yourselves,  gathering  your  impressions 
from  them  in  their  dumb  eloquence.  You  see  that 
laughing  face,  and  you  think  if  it  could  speak  now 
it  might  make  me  rend  my  sides  with  laughter 
Wny  can't  the  laughing  genius  set  me  off?  You 

*  A  Lecture  delivered  in  Exeter  Hall,  December  14,  1878. 


4  Moderate  Drinking. 

wander  on,  and  meet  a  face  of  quite  a  different  kind ; 
it  is  worn  with  care  and  sorrow  ;  it  grieves  hope- 
lessly over  something  lost ;  there  is  in  its  expression 
a  shadow  of  a  fixed,  a  horrible  despair.  Ah!  say 
you,  as  you  sigh  in  sympathy:  If  that  dead  silence 
could  utter  its  story,  how  my  soul  would  sink  and 
shudder ;  how  my  eyes  would  weep,  my  heart 
palpitate,  my  breathing  sob ;  and,  glad  that 
the  statue  is  so  silent  and  yet  impressed  with  a 
sense  of  solemnity,  you  once  more  move  away. 
In  both  cases  you  have  been  spoken  to,  to  the  heart. 
Your  sympathies  have  been  quickened,  and  feelings 
of  the  deepest  character  have  been  called  forth  by 
one  influence — the  influence  of  art  on  your  finest, 
purest  passions,  on  that  which  makes  you  sentient : 
sentiment  expressed  by  and  through  art. 

While  the  passion  so  inspired  lasts,  you  move  on 
again,  and  so  you  come  upon  another  of  these  dead 
artistic  forms  of  matter.  What  inscrutable  figure  is 
this?  It  has  the  face  of  a  woman,  the  wings  of  a 
bird,  the  talons  of  a  griffin.  The  face  expresses 
everything,  yet  nothing  that  is  explicable;  in  every 
view  of  it,  it  changes  as  if  it  could  adapt  its  features 
to  every  subject,  yet  in  no  position  does  it  suggest 
a  realizable  thought.  There  is  no  mirth  in  it,  no 
sorrow  no  care,  and  still,  though  even  care  is 
absent,  there  is  solemnity.  Its  ideal  of  motion  gives 
it  the  appearance  that  on  those  wings,  it  could 
fly  even  beyond  the  confines  of  space  if  it  willed. 
Us  ideal  of  position  and  rest  rivets  you  to  the  belief 


Moderate  Drinking.  j 

..hat  by  those  talons  of  it,  it  car,  seize  and  hold  every- 
thing it  clutches,  so  that  the  very  earth  itself  is  in 
its  ruthless  grasp.  To  the  ignorant  this  figure  is  a 
monster,  ruthless  as  nature,  and  yet  with  a  calm 
beneficence  that  seems  to  declare,  You  may  trust 
me  also  like  nature.  You  say,  If  that  form  could 
speak,  what  would  it  tell?  It  would  excite  no 
laughter,  it  would  call  forth  no  tears,  but  as  solemn- 
ly as  surely  it  would  proclaim  the  truth.  Once 
more  you  wander  away,  wondering  at  what  you 
have  seen.  Your  reason  this  time  has  been  quick- 
ened, and  feelings  of  the  deepest  character  have 
been  called  forth  by  one  influence.  The  element 
of  wonder  in  your  nature  which  ma.kes  you  long  to 
seize,  to  know,  has  been  touched  in  you.  Science 
has  approached  you  this  time  through  art. 

All  the  riddles  of  this  figure,  says  Lord  Bacon, 
haver  two  conditions  annexed  :  laceration  through 
and  through  to  those  who  do  not  solve  them,  and 
empire  to  those  that  do.  It  is  the  Sphinx  of  the 
ancient,  the  Science  of  the  modern  world. 

If  from  the  gallery  of  the  sculptor  you  transport 
yourselves  into  every-day  life,  you  meet  the  same 
influences.  These  two  powers  of  sentiment  and 
reason,  of  passion  and  science,  are  in  every  sphere. 
They  touch  every  question,  and  no  question  more 
than  that  with  which  we  are  now  concerned.  The 
custom  of  drinking  intoxicants  has  been  built  up  on 
passion  or  sentiment  solely  and  absolutely.  The 
laughing  and  the  crying  figures  have  been  its  chiei 


6  Moderate  Blinking. 

commentators.     They  chiefly  have  been  read,  and 
their  views  proclaimed. 

Until  lately  in  the  history  of  man  the  laughing 
genius  has  alone  been  listened  to  on  this  grave 
matter.  The  mournful,  stricken  genius  has,  it  is 
true,  never  been  silent,  but  he  has  been  overpowered. 
At  last  his  story,  too,  has  been  caught,  and  zealous 
listeners  to  it,  burning  with  sacred  fire  of  elo- 
quence— like  Father  Mathevv  and  John  B.  Gough — 
have  echoed  and  re-echoed  the  terrible  story  told 
by  the  stricken,  until  the  world  has  been  obliged 
to  hear  voices  louder  than  the  shouts  of  the  laughers 
and  the  yells  of  the  profane.  Passion  at  last  has 
met  passion  in  deadly  contest,  and  as  the  contest 
still  rages,  the  victory  of  the  long-neglected  sor- 
rowful seems  to  hang  in  the  balance.  The  pande- 
moniumites  no  longer  have  it  all  their  way. 

Meanwhile,  what  says  that  third  authority — that 
silent,  passionless  Sphinx  ?  She  for  ages  past  has 
watched  the  trial.  Has  she  never,  through  any  of 
her  interpreters,  spoken  her  mind  ?  She  has  often 
spoken.  She  has  spoken  in  parable  ;  she  has  spoken 
in  proverb  ;  she  has  spoken  in  fact. 

It  is  to  her  we  appeal  to-day  ;  and  as  she  is  pas 
sionless  and  without  prejudice,  so  let  us  be.  Le 
us  for  the  passing  hour — 

"  Retire,  the  world  shut  out,  our  thoughts  call  home ; 
Imagination's  airy  wing  suppress. 
Shut  up  our  senses,  let  no  passion  stir ; 
Leave  all  to  reason,  let  her  reign  alone." 


Moderate  Drinking.  7 

Thus  may  we  learn  what  the  silent,  reasoning 
nature,  Science,  has  said,  and  is  saying,  by  parable, 
proverb,  and  fact,  concerning  the  use  of  wines  and 
strong  drink  by  mankind. 

SCIENCE   IN   PARABLE. 

In  early  days  the  Sphinx  spoke  ^by  parable. 
Bacchus,  the  god  of  the  wine-cup,  subdued  the 
world  to  the  furthest  of  the --Indies  ;  was  drawn  in 
a  chariot  by  tigers ;  he  was  surrounded  by  de- 
formed demons  ;  was  followed  by  the  Muses  ;  mar- 
ried  the  cast-off  mistress  of  Theseus ;  was  crowned 
with  ivy  ;  invented  all  such  religious  rites  as  were 
frantic,  corrupt,  and  cruel;  gained  the  power  of 
striking  men  with  frenzies,  and  tore  to  pieces 
Pentheus,  the  inquisitive,  and  Orpheus,  the  civilizer 
— the  first  because  he  dared  to  inquire  into  the  evil 
work  of  the  Bacchanalians;  the  second,  because  he 
dared  to  counsel  and  advise  them. 

All  this  is  parable,  yet  parable  grand  in  the 
extreme.  That  Bacchus  should  be  the  inventor  of 
wine,  says  one  of  the  profoundest  interpreters  of 
science,  my  Lord  Bacon,  carries  with  it  a  fine  alle- 
gory, for  every  affection  is  cunning  and  subtle  in 
discovering  a  proper  matter  to  nourish  and  feed 
it — and  of  all  things  known  to  mortals,  wine  is  the 
most  powerful  and  effectual  for  exciting  and  in- 
flaming passions  of  all  kinds,  being  indeed  like  a 
common  fuel  to  all.  That  Bacchus  subdued  prov- 
inces is  equally  true,  for  the  affections  never  rest 


8  Moderate  Drinking. 

satisfied  with  what  they  enjoy,  but  with  an  endless 
and  insatiable  appetite  after  something  further. 
Tigers  are  prettily  fancied  to  draw  the  chariot, 
because  so  soon  as  any  affection  shall,  from  going 
on  foot,  be  advanced  to  ride,  it  triumphs  over  rea- 
son, and  exerts  its  cruelty,  fierceness,  and  strength 
against  all  that  oppose  it.  That  ridiculous  demons 
should  dance  round  the  chariot  is  also  good,  for 
every  passion  produces  disorderly  motions  in  the 
countenance  and  gestures,  so  that  the  person  under 
the  impulse  of  love,  anger,  insult,  though  to  himself 
he  may  seem  grand,  lofty,  or  obliging,  yet  in  the 
eyes  of  others  appears  mean,  contemptible,  or  ridic- 
ulous. And,  that  the  Muses  should  be  found  in  the 
train  is  natural,  because  there  is  no  passion  without 
its  doctrine  to  flatter  it  and  become  its  handmaid. 
Further,  says  the  same  brilliant  commentator,  the 
allegory  of  Bacchus  falling  in  love  with  a  cast-off 
mistress,  is  extremely  fine,  for  the  affections  always 
court  and  covet  what  has  been  rejected  by  expe- 
rience;  nor  is  it  wilhout  reason  that  ivy  is  sacred 
to  him,  because  the  predominant  passion  of  the 
mind  throws  itself  like  ivy  round  all  human  actions, 
entwines  all  our  resolutions,  and  even  overtops  them. 
And  that  rank  superstitions  should  be  attributed  to 
him  is  true,  because  every  ungovernable  passion  is 
a  short  frenzy,  and,  if  it  take  root,  ends  in  madness. 
Hence,  Pentheus  and  Orpheus  were  torn  to  pieces, 
because  passion  is  extremely  bitter  on  all  curious 
inquiry,  free  counsel,  and  wise  persuasion. 


Moderate  Drinking.  g 

This  is  the  allegory  of  wine  invented  while  wine 
was  young,  and  before  its  stronger  allies,  brandy, 
rum,  gin,  and  whisky,  were  known.  It  is  an  alle- 
gory showing  that  all  the  custom  of  drinking  wine 
is  founded  on  passion  or  sentiment.  It  is  an  alle- 
gory that  has  been  maintained  without  change 
until  quite  a  recent  page  in  the  history  of  mankind. 

SCIENCE   IN   PROVERB. 

In  such  mode  science  has  spoken  in  parable. 
She  has  spoken  with  equal  clearness  in  proverb 
through  her  noblest  representatives. 

Through  the  wisest  of  them  all,  Solomon,  thei 
wise,  she  declared,  "  Wine  is  a  mocker,  strong 
drink  is  raging."  Through  another  of  her  sons, 
Seneca,  the  Roman,  she  declared  that  to  argue  that 
a  man  may  take  wine  and  retain  a  right  frame  of 
mind,  is  as  bad  as  to  argue  that  he  may  take  poison 
and  not  die,  or  the  juice  of  the  poppy  and  not  sleep. 
She  spoke  through  Demosthenes,  the  great  orator 
of  the  Greeks,  affirming  "  that  to  drink  well  is  the 
property  of  a  sponge,  not  of  a  man."  By  the  true 
philosopher,  Pliny,  she  told  that  King  Antiochus, 
having  forced  his  minions  at  a  banquet  to  take 
excess  of  wine,  they  killed  him,  from  which  story 
she  taught,  through  the  same  interpreter,  the 
moral,  that  if  we  tempt  others  into  error,  the  con. 
sequences  fall  back  upon  ourselves. 

Through  her  favorite  master,  Shakespeare,  she 
exclaimed,  "  Oh,  that  a  man  should  put  an  enemy 


IO  Moderate  Drinking. 

into  his  mouth  to  steal  away  his  brains  !  f  And  so 
in  endless  proverbial  sayings  she  has  been  ever 
speaking  to  all  who  would  listen  to  her  interpreters. 

SCIENCE  IN  FACT. 

I  must  not  dwell  longer  on  these  utterances;  my 
principal  object  being  to  exclaim  what  she  has  said 
ind  is  saying  in  more  modern  times  on  the  question 
of  fact  in  relation  to  strong  drink  and  its  effect  on  the 
world  of  life.  Let  us  take  some  of  her  more  salient 
teachings  first. 

In  the  year  1725  she  spoke  to  the  Government 
of  this  country  through  the  president  of  the  College 
of  Physicians  of  London,  stating  that  "the  fatal 
effects  of  the  frequent  use  of  several  sorts  of  distilled 
spirituous  liquors  upon  great  numbers  of  both  sexes 
renders  them  diseased,  not  fit  for  business,  poor,  a 
burthen  to  themselves  and  neighbors,  and  too  often 
the  cause  of  weak,  feeble,  and  distempered  children, 
who  must  be,  instead  of  an  advantage  and  strength, 
a  charge  to  their  country.  Twenty-nine  years  later, 
she  spoke  again  through  the  mouth  of  one  of  her 
most  approved  servants,  the  first  inventor  of  venti- 
lators, Dr.  Stephen  Hales.  Through  this  illustrious 
philosopher  she  explained  that  strong  liquors, 
though  called  spirituous,  are  so  far  from  refreshing 
and  recruiting  the  spirits,  that,  on  the  contrary, 
they  do,  in  reality,  depress  and  sink  them,  and  ex- 
tinguish the  natural  warmth  of  the  blood. 

Y  ou  will  see  from  these  evidences,  which  could 


Moderate  Drinking.  II 

be  largely  multiplied,  that  long  ago  Science  spoke 
strongly  by  her  best  speakers  on  matters  of  fact 
relating  to  the  use  of  strong  drinks.  You  will  note, 
moreover,  that  her  utterances  in  that  respect  are 
very  urgent  against  strong  drinks.  At  the  same 
time  you  will  with  fairness  reply,  "  All  that  is  true ; 
but  the  argument  is  so  far  against  excessive  use." 
We  all  admit  that  argument;  doctors  admit  that 
universally;  statesmen  admit  it ;  statisticians  prove 
that;  clergymen  who  are  not  abstainers  express 
that ;  nay,  the  very  sellers  of  strong  drinks,  the 
gentlemen  who  sell  wholesale,  and  the  publicans 
who  dispense  for  the  gentlemen,  they,  too,  admit 
the  solemn,  unanswerable  truth,  that  strong  drink 
kills.  We  therefore  need  no  Sphinx  to  inform  us 
of  what  is  universally  admitted.  This,  however, 
we  do  want  to  know.  We  desire  to  be  informed 
what  is  to  be  said  by  Science  on  the  moderate  use  of 
these  agents.  Let  abuse  of  them  go  to  the  wall ;  let 
use  stand  forth  alone,  and  let  us  hear  what  place 
this  strong  drink  holds  in  relation  to  man  and  ani- 
mals— what  place  it  holds  in  nature — what  good  it 
is  for  man — what  bad,  when  it  is  used  in  modera- 
tion. Let  us  have  the  for  and  against. 

The  request  is  justice  itself.  There  can  be  no 
(Abjection  whatever  to  put  the  answer  of  Science  to 
the  "  for"  as  well  as  the  "against." 

The  most  ardent  of  abstainers  may  venture  thus 
far;  nay,  he  must  venture,  otherwise  his  case  is 
weak,  though  it  may  not  be  lost.  In  plain  words, 


12  Moderate  Drinking. 

the  reasons  for  the  use  of  the  strong  drinks  in  a 
moderate  way  are  so  plausible,  that  if  they  can  not 
be  admitted  and  rebutted,  all  the  reasons  against 
»'s  use  lose  half  their  force.  There  is  no  escaping 
that  irresistible  conclusion. 

WINE  AND   WATER. 

Let  us  begin  by  looking  at  the  interpretations  of 
Science  in  her  latest  teachings  as  to  the  nature  of 
strong  drinks. 

On  this  point  all  are  now  agreed  who  speak 
scientifically.  For  many  ages  wine  was  looked 
upon  as  a  distinct  drink,  as  a  something  apart 
altogether  from  water.  Strong  wine  will  take  fire  ; 
water  will  quench  fire.  Wine  has  a  color  and 
sparkles  in  the  glass;  water  is  colorless  and  clear 
as  crystal.  Wine  has  taste  and  flavor  and  odor ; 
water  is  tasteless  and  odorless.  Wine  is  the  blood 
of  the  grape  and  in  some  respects  seems  akin  to  the 
blood  of  man  ;  water  is  of  all  things  least  like  blood. 
Wine  when  drunken  makes  the  face  flush,  the  eyes 
sparkle,  the  heart  leap,  the  pulses  sharp,  the  veins 
full ;  water  when  drunken  does  none  of  these  acts, 
and  seems  to  do  nothing  but  respond  to  the  natural 
wish  for  drink.  Wine  makes  the  lips  and  tongue 
parched  and  dry,  the  drinker  athirst ;  water  keeps 
the  lips  and  tongue  and  stomach  moist,  and  quencffes 
the  thirst  of  the  drinker.  Wine  when  it  is  taken, 
sets  all  the  passions  aglow  and  dulls  the  reason  ; 
bids  men  enjoy  and  reason  not ;  water  creates  no 


Moderate  Drinking.  13 

Stir  of  passion,  and  leaves  the  reason  free.  Wine 
makes  for  itself  a  first  and  second  and  third  and 
fourth  claim  on  the  drinker,  so  that  the  more  of  it 
he  takes  the  more  of  it  he  desires;  it  is  overwhelm- 
ing in  the  warmth  of  its  friendship  ;  water  sates  the 
drinker  after  one  draught ;  makes  no  further  claim 
on  him  than  is  just  consistent  with  its  duty ;  leads 
him  never  to  take  more  and  more ;  and  has  no 
seeming  warmth  in  its  friendship.  Wine  multiplies 
itself  into  many  forms,  which  appear  to  be  distinct; 
it  is  new,  it  is  old  ;  it  is  sweet,  it  is  sour  ;  it  is  sharp, 
it  is  soft ;  it  is  sparkling,  it  is  still ;  water  is  ever  the 
same.  Wine  must  be  petted  and  cherished,  stored 
up  in  special  skins  and  special  caves,  styled  by  par 
ticular  names,  praised  under  special  titles,  and 
heartily  liked  or  disliked,  like  a  child  of  passion ; 
water,  pshaw!  it  is  everywhere;  it  has  one  name, 
no  more ;  it  has  one  quality ;  it  hurries  away  out  of 
the  earth  by  brooks  and  rivulets  and  rivers  into  the 
all-absorbing  sea,  where  it  is  undrinkable  ;  or  it 
pours  down  from  the  clouds  as  if  the  gods  were 
tired  of  it ;  it  is  no  child  of  passion  !  Let  the  cattle, 
and  the  dogs,  and  the  wild  beasts  alone  drink  water. 
Let  the  man  have  the  overpowering  drink,  the 
blood  of  the  grape — wine  ! 

Alas !  for  this  poetic  dream.  Science,  poetic, 
too,  in  her  way,  but  passionless,  destroys  in  those 
crucibles  of  hers,  which  men  call  laboratories,  this 
flimsy  dream  There  she  tells  that,  when  one  or 
two  disguises  are  removed,  even  blood  is  water  • 


14  Moderate  Drinking. 

as  to  wine,  that  is  mere  dirty  water— sixteen  bottles 
or  cups  or  any  other  equal  measures  of  water,  pure 
and  simple;  from  the  clouds  and  earth,  to  one  poor 
bottle  or  cup  of  a  burning,  fiery  fluid  which  has 
been  called  ardent  spirit,  or  spirit  of  wine,  or 
alcohol,  with  some  little  coloring  matter,  in  certain 
cases  a  little  acid,  in  other  cases  a  little  sugar,  and 
in  still  other  cases  a  little  cinder  stuff. 

It  is  a  pitiful  fall,  but  it  is  such,  and  science  not 
only  declares  it,  but  proves  it  so  to  be.  A  pitiful 
let-down,  that  men  throughout  all  ages  who  have 
called  themselves  wine-drinkers  have  been  water- 
drinkers  after  all ;  that  men  who  have  called  them- 
•selves  wine  merchants  have  been  water  merchants  ; 
that  men  who  have  bought,  and  still  buy,  wines  at 
fabulous  prices  have  been  buying,  and  still  are 
buying,  water.  A  dozen  of  champagne,  bought  at 
a  cost  of  five  pounds  ten  shillings,  very  choice — I 
am. speaking  by  the  book — consisted,  when  it  was 
all  measured  out,  of  three  hundred  ounces,  or  fifteen 
pints  of  fluid,  of  which  fluid  thirteen  pints  and  a 
half  were  pure  water,  the  rest  ardent  spirit,  with  a 
little  carbonic  acid,  some  coloring  matter  like  burnt 
sugar,  a  light  flavoring  ether  in  almost  infinitesimal 
proportion,  or  a  trace  of  cinder  stuff.  Science, 
looking  on  dispassionately,  records  merely  the  facts. 
If  she  thinks  that  five  pounds  ten  shillings  was  a 
heavy  sum  to  pay  for  thirteen  pints  and  a  half  of 
water  and  one  pint  and  a  half  of  spirit,  she  says 
nothing;  she  leaves  that  to  the  men  and  women  01 


Moderate  Drinking.  15 

sentiment  and  passionate  feeling,  buyers  and  sellers 
and  drinkers  all  round. 


-  ARDENT  SPIRIT. 

But  if  it  be  not  her  business  to  enter  into  this 
commercial  undertaking-  or  spoil  its  glory,  it  is  her 
business  to  take  up  that  pint  and  a  half  of  ardent 
spirit  which,  split  up  through  fifteen  pints,  gave  all 
the  zest  and  consequence  to  the  thirteen  and  a  hall 
pints  of  colored  water. 

Taking  this  ardent  spirit  into  one  of  her  crucibles 
or  laboratories,  Science  compares  it  with  other 
products  on  the  shelves  there,  and  soon  she  finds 
its  niche  in  which  it  fits  truly.  On  the  shelf  where 
it  fits  she  has  ranged  a  number  of  other  spirits. 
There  is  chloroform,  ether,  sweet  spirit  of  nitre, 
and  some  other  fluids,  very  useful  remedies  in  the 
hands  of  the  physician.  These,  she  sees,  are  the 
children  of  the  spirit,  are  made,  in  fact,  from  it. 
On  the  same  shelf  she  has  another  set  of  spirits ; 
chere  is  wood  spirit,  there  is  potato  spirit,  there  is 
a  substance  which  looks  like  spermaceti;  and  these 
she  sees  are  all  members  of  the  same  family,  no* 
children,  this  time,  of  the  ardent  spirit,  but  brothers 
or  sisters,  each  one  constructed  from  the  same  ele- 
ments in  the  same  relative  proportions  and  on  the 
same  type.  Passionless,  having  no  predilection  for 
any  one  object  in  the  universe  except  the  truth,  she 
writes  down  the  ardent  spirit  as  having  its  proper 
place  in  a  group  of  chemical  substances  which  are 


1 6  Moderate  Drinking. 

distinctly  apart  from  other  substances  she  knows 
of,  on  which  men  and  animals  live,  and  which  are 
called  by  the  name  of  foods  or  sustainers  of  life 
She  says  all  the  members  of  the  spirit  family  are, 
unless  judiciously  and  even  skillfully  used,  inimical 
to  life.  They  produce  drowsiness,  sleep,  death. 
In  the  hands  of  the  skillful  they  may  be  safe  as 
medicines  ;  in  the  hands  of  the  unskillful  they  are 
unsafe,  they  are  poisons.  To  this  rule  there  is  not 
one  exception  amongst  them.  There  can  be  no 
demur,  no  doubt  now  on  this  particular  point ;  it 
may  be  a  blow  to  poetry  of  passion;  it  may  make 
the  ancient  and  modern  bacchanalian  look  foolish 
to  tell  him  that  wine  is  a  chemical  substance  mixed 
and  diluted  with  water,  and  that  beer  and  spirits 
are  all  in  the  same  category ;  but  such  is  the  fact 
In  computing^  the  influence  of  wine,  men  have  no 
longer  to  discuss  anything  more  than  the  influence 
of  a  definite  chemical  compound,  one  of  a  family  of 
chemical  compounds  called  the  alcohols — the  second 
of  a  family  group,  differing  in  origin  from  the  first 
of  the  series,  which  is  got  from  wood,  in  that  it  is 
got  from  grain,  and  is  called  ethylic,  or  common 
alcohol,  pure  spirit  of  wine. 

Thus  by  the  interpretation  of  scientific  truth,  we 
fix  the  agent  that  has  made  wine  and  its  allies  so 
notorious  in  the  world. 

ARDENT   SPIRIT  IN   RELATION  TO   LIFE. 

But  now  the  world  turns  properly  to  ask  another 
question.  Admitted  all  that  is  said,  why;  after  all, 


Moderate  Drinking.  17 

shoif.d  the  practice  of  mankind  in  the  use  of  this 
spirit  be  bad  ?  Man  is  not  guided  solely  by  reason  ; 
passion  may  lead  him  sometimes,  perchance,  in  the 
true  path.  Tell  us  then,  O  Science !  why  this 
ardent  spirit  may  not  still  be  drunken  ;  why  may 
it  not  be  a  part  of  the  life  of  man ! 

To  this  question  the  answer  of  Science  is  straight 
and  to  the  point.  In  the  universe  of  life  she  says 
man  forms  but  a  fractional  part.  All  the.  sea  is  full 
of  life;  all  the  woods  are  full  of  life  ;  all  the  air  is 
full  of  life  ;  on  the  surface  of  the  earth  man  possesses, 
as  companions  or  as  enemies,  herds  and  herds  of 
living  forms.  Of  that  visible  life  he  forms  but  a 
minute  speck,  and  beyond  that  visible  life  there  is 
the  world  invisible  to  common  view,  with  its  myriads 
of  forms  unsee.n  which  the  most  penetrating 
microscope  has  not  reached.  Again,  there  are 
other  forms  of  life  ;  plants  innumerable,  from  gigan- 
tic Wellingtonias  to  lichens  and  mosses,  and  beneath 
these  myriads  more  so  infinitely  minute  that  the 
microscope  fails  to  reach  them.  This  is  all  life,  life 
which  goes  through  its  set  phases  in  due  form  ; 
grows  in  health  and  strength  and  beauty,  every 
part  of  it,  from  highest  to  lowest  living  grade,  with- 
out a  shade  of  the  use  of  this  strong  spirit.  What 
evidence  can  be  more  conclusive  that  alcohol  is  not 
included  in  the  scheme  of  life  ? 

And  yet,  if  you  want  more  evidence,  it  is  yours. 
You  try  man  by  himself.  Every  child  of  woman 
born,  if  it  be  not  perverted,  lives  without  alcohol, 


1 8  Moderate  Drinking. 

grows  up  without  it;  spends  —  and  this  is  a  vital 
point  —  spends  the  very  happiest  part  of  its  life 
without  it ;  gains  its  growing  strength  and  vitality 
without  it;  feels  no  want  for  it.  The  course  of  its 
life  is,  at  the  most,  on  an  average  of  the  best  lives, 
sixty  years,  of  which  the  first  fifteen,  in  other  words, 
the  first  fourth,  are  the  most  dangerous ;  yet  it  goes 
through  that  fourth  without  the  use  of  this  agent. 
But  if  in  the  four  stages  of  life  it  can  go  through 
the  first  and  most  critical  stage  without  alcohol, 
why  can  not  it  traverse  the  remaining  three?  Is 
Nature  so  unwise  in  her  doings,  so  capricious,  so 
uncertain,  that  she  withholds  a  giver  of  life  from  the 
helpless,  and  supplies  it  only  to  the  helpful?  Im- 
possible !  She  provides  for  the  helpless  at  once  a 
food  and  a  drink  —  their  mother's  milk.  Further, 
there  have  been  many  men  and  women,  millions  on 
millions  of  them,  who  have  gone  on  through  the 
four  stages  of  life,  from  the  first  to  the  last,  without 
resort  to  this  agent  for  the  support  of  life.  Some 
men,  forming  whole  nations,  have  never  heard  of  it ; 
some  have  heard  of  it  and  have  abjured  its  use.  In 
England  and  America,  at  this  time,  there  are  prob- 
ably near  upon  six  millions  of  persons  who  have 
abjured  this  agent.  Do  they  fall  or  fail  in  value  of 
life  from  the  abjuration  ?  The  evidence,  as  we 
shall  distinctly  see  by  and  by,  is  all  the  other  way. 
There  are,  lastly,  some  who  are  forced  to  live  with- 
out the  use  of  this  agent.  Do  they  fall  or  die  in 
consequence  ?  There  is  not  a  single  instance  in 
illustration. 


Moderate  Drinking.  19 

On  all  these  points,  Science,  when  she  is  ques* 
tioned  earnestly,  and  interpreted  justly,  is  decisive 
and  firm,  and  if  you  question  her  in  yet  another  di 
rection,  she  is  not  less  certain.  You  ask  her  for  a 
comparison  of  alcohol,  and  of  man,  in  respect  to 
the  structure  of  both,  and  her  evidence  is  as  the 
sun  at  noon  in  its  clearness.  She  has  taken  the 
body  of  man  to  pieces  ;  she  has  learned  the  compo- 
sition of  its  every  structure — skin,  muscle,  bone,  vis- 
cera, brain,  nervous  cord,  organs  of  sense !  She 
knows  of  what  these  parts  are  formed,  and  she 
knows  from  whence  the  components  came.  She 
finds  in  the'muscles  fibrine ;  it  came  from  the  fibrine 
of  flesh,  or  from  the  gluten  or  albumen  of  the  plants 
on  which  the  man  had  fed.  She  finds  tendon  and 
cartilage,  and  earthy  matter  of  the  skeleton ;  they 
were  from  the  vegetable  kingdom.  She  finds  water 
in  the  body  in  such  abundance  that  it  makes  up 
seven  parts  out  of  eight  of  the  whole,  and  that  she 
knows  the  source  of  readily  enough.  She  finds 
iron,  that  she  traces  from  the  earth.  She  finds  fat, 
and  that  she  traces  to  sugar  and  starch.  In  short,  she 
discovers,  in  whatever  structure  she  searches,  the 
origin  of  the  structure.  But  as  a  natural  presence, 
she  finds  no  ardent  spirit  there  in  any  part  or  fluid. 
Nothing  made  from  spirit.  Did  she  find  either,  she 
would  say  the  body  is  diseased,  and,  it  may  be,  was 
killed  by  that  which  is  found. 

Sometimes,  in  the  bodies  of  men,  she  discovers 
the  evidences  of  some  conditions  that  are  not  natu- 
ral. She  compares  these  bodies  with  the  bodies  of 


2O  Moderate  Drinking. 

other  men,  or  with  the  bodies  of  inferior  animals,  as 
sheep  and  oxen,  and  finds  that  the  unnatural  ap- 
pearances are  peculiar  to  persons  who  have  taken 
alcohol,  and  are  indications  of  new  structural 
changes  which  are  not  proper,  and  which  she  calls 
disease. 

Thus,  by  two  tests,  Science  tries  the  comparison 
between  alcohol  and  man.  She  finds  in  the  body 
no  structure  made  from  alcohol ;  she  finds  in  the 
healthy  body  no  alcohol;  she  finds  in  those  who 
have  taken  alcohol  changes  of  the  structure,  and 
those  are  changes  of  disease.  By  all  these  proofs 
she  declares  alcohol  to  be  entirety  alien  to  the 
structure  of  man.  It  does  not  build  up  the  body  ; 
it  undermines  and  destroys  the  building. 

One  step  more.  If  you  question  Science  on  the 
comparison  which  exists  between  foods  and  alcohol, 
she  gives  you  facts  on  every  hand.  She  shows  you 
a  natural  and  all-sufficient  and  standard  food — she 
calls  it  milk.  She  takes  it  to  pieces ;  she  says  it  is 
made  up  of  caseine,  for  the  construction  of  muscu- 
lar and  other  active  tissues ;  of  sugar  and  fat,  for 
supplying  fuel  to  the  body  for  the  animal  warmth  ; 
of  salts  for  the  earthy,  and  of  water  for  the  liquid 
parts.  This  is  a  perfect  standard.  Holds  it  any 
comparison  with  alcohol  ?  Not  a  jot.  The  com- 
parison is  the  same  with  all  other  natural  foods. 

Man,  going  forth  to  find  food  for  his  wants,  dis- 
covers it  in  various  substances,  but  only  naturally, 
yi  precisely  such  substances,  and  in  the  same  pro* 


Moderate  Drinking.  21 

portions  of  such  substances  as  exist  in  the  standard 
food  on  which  he  first  fed.  Alcohol,  alien  to  the 
body  of  man,  is  alike  alien  to  the  natural  food  of 
man. 

ARDENT  SPIRIT  AND  ANIMAL  STRENGTH. 

Some  of  you  will  perhaps  ask :  Is  every  use  of 
food  comprised  in  the  building-  up  of  the  body? 
Is  not  some  food  used  as  the  fuel  of  the  engine  is 
used,  not  to  produce  material,  but  to  generate  heat 
and  motion,  to  burn  and  to  be  burned  ?  The  answer 
is  as  your  question  suggests.  Some  food  is  burned 
in  the  body,  and  by  that  means  the  animal  fire — the 
calor  vitalis,  or  vital  heat,  of  the  ancients — is  kept 
alive.  Then,  say  you  :  May  not  alcohol  burn  ?  We 
take  starch,  we  take  sugar  into  the  body,  as  foods, 
but  there  are  no  structure  of  starch  and"  sugar,  only 
some  products  derived  from  them  which  show  that 
they  have  been  burned.  May  not  alcohol  in  like 
manner  be  burned  and  carried  away  in  new  form 
of  construction  of  matter  ? 

What  says  Science  to  this  inquiry?  Her  answer 
is  simple.  To  burn  and  produce  no  heat  is  improb- 
able, if  not  impossible ;  and  if  probable  or  even  pos- 
sible, is  unproductive  of  service  for  the  purpose  of 
sustaining  the  animal  powers.  Test,  then,  the  ani- 
mal body  under  the  action  of  alcohol,  and  see  your 
findings.  Your  findings  shall  prove  that,  under  the 
most  favorable  conditions,  the  mean  effect  of  the 
alcohol  will  be  to  reduce  the  animal  temperature 


22  Moderate  Drinking. 

through  the  mass  of  the  body.  There  will  be  a  glow 
of  warmth  on  the  surface  of  the  body.  Truly!  but 
that  is  cooling  of  the  body.  It  is  from  an  extra  sheet 
of  warm  blood  brought  from  the  heart  into  weakened 
vessels  of  the  surface,  to  give  up  its  heat  and  leave 
the  whole  body  chilled,  with  the  products  of  combus- 
tion lessened,  the  nervous  tone  lowered,  the  muscu- 
lar power  reduced,  the  quickened  heart  jaded,  the 
excited  brain  infirm,  and  the  mind  depressed  and  en- 
feebled. Alcohol,  alien  to  the  structure  of  man  and 
to  the  food  of  man,  is  alike  alien  to  living  strength 
of  man,  and  to  the  fires  which  maintain  his  life. 

ARDENT  SPIRIT  AND   CONSERVATION  OF   STRENGTH. 

It  will  occur  to  you  to  make  yet  another  inquiry 
relative  to  the  action  of  this  alcohol  on  the  body. 
You  will  ask  :  If  it  be  not  a  substance  that  supplies 
the  material  body  with  material,  if  it  be  not  a  sub- 
stance  that  supplies  warmth  and  power,  does  it  not 
save  expenditure  of  warmth  and  power,  and  so  pre- 
serve? Does  it  not,  to  use  a  very  homely  simile, 
bank  up  the  animal  fire,  and  keep  it  in  ?  If  it 
should  do  that,  then  the  nervous  system  and  the 
muscular  system  may  perhaps  be  so  conserved 
that  mental  and  muscular  effort  may,  under  trial, 
be  maintained  by  it  more  determinately.  The  aid 
thus  afforded  may  be  artificial,  but  still  useful.  A 
crutch  is  artificial,  and  so  is  a  wooden  leg,  but 
both  are  useful.  What  says  Science  on  this  point? 
Science  replies  again,  clearly  and  decisively.  She 


Moderate  Drinking.  23 

shows  that  so  soon  as  the  nervous  system  feels  the 
effect  of  the  stimulant,  so  soon  as  the  will  comes  un- 
der its  influence,  so  soon  there  is  aberration  in  the 
direction  of  the  will.  There  is  excitement,  there  is 
deficient  precision  of  directing  movement  o'f  limb, 
there  is  lapse  of  presence  of  mind,  there  is  limited 
endurance  of  effort.  The  vital  fire  is  not  being 
banked  up,  but  banked  out.  With  refined  methods 
of  research  she  turns  to  the  muscular  organs,  those 
fleshy  engines  which  produce  the  animal  move- 
ments, and  again  discovers  that  from  the  moment 
these  engines  come  under  the  influence  of  the  alco- 
hol, they  fail  in  power ;  that  from  the  first  moment 
they  are  excited  to  that  last  moment  when,  col" 
lapsed  and  hopeless,  they  let  their  owner  fall  down 
helpless,  our  progress  is  steadily  and  inevitably  to- 
ward that  collapse,  if  the  influence  of  the  producing 
agent  be  not  withdrawn. 

Science  goes  further  in  her  exposition  on  this 
part  of  our  inquiry.  She  points  triumphantly  to 
every-day  facts  in  open  corroboration  of  her  teach- 
ing. She  places  men  engaged  in  severe  labor  of 
mind  in  two  conditions:  one  set  under  the  moder- 
ate influence,  the  other  out  of  the  influence  of  alco- 
hol, and  she  declares  the  difference.  She  tells  from 
direct  experience  that  so  little  as  one  glass  of  wine 
is  often  sufficient,  in  fine  intellects,  to  take  away  the 
sharpness  of  the  intellectual  power.  She  sees  that 
in  all  great  crises  the  clear  mind  of  him  who  is  free 
of  alcoholic  taint,  is  the  mind  on  which  dependence 


24  Moderate  Drinking. 

is  most  readily  placed.  She  sees  men  who  some- 
times indulge  in  alcohol  give  up  the  indulgence 
during  an  emergency,  that  they  may  be  readier  for 
their  work.  She  sees  all  classes  of  mankind  making 
the  first  inquiry,  in  respect  to  those  whom  they 
have  to  trust:  Are  those  we  want  sober  men? 
Are  they  free  of  the  feebleness  of  thought,  action, 
and  character  that  is  induced  by  strong -drink? 

In  continued  illustration  of  her  teaching,  Science 
points  to  men  who  work  with  their  hands  in  various 
labors,  and  places,  and  conditions.  In  temperate 
regions  of  the  earth,  she  puts  to  the  test  men  who 
march,  who  ride,  who  race,  who  swim,  who  fight. 
She  matches  those  who  take  alcohol  with  those 
who  don't,  and  she  challenges  the  world  to  behold 
that  those  who  don't  are  the  winners.  She  takes  a 
body  of  men  to  the  arid  regions  of  tropical  lands ; 
she  leads  them  there,  in  different  companies,  on 
long  marches,  and  divides  them  so  that  one  com- 
pany takes  a  measured  ration  of  strong  drink,  while 
the  other,  content  with  its  ration  of  simple  water, 
don't ;  and  she  bids  us  see  how  easily,  how  health- 
ily, how  certainly  those  who  don't,  carry  off  the 
honors  of  superior  marching  power.  Not  satisfied 
with  this  test,  she  takes  another  set  of  men  into  the 
regions  of  thick-ribbed  ice  ;  the  extremes!  northern 
line  where  man  has  trodden.  See  you,  she  says  to 
the  brave  men  she  leads  there,  see  you  at  the  dis- 
tance only  of  a  few  hundred  miles,  like  a  journey 
from  London  to  Edinburgh  in  length,  or  little 


Moderate  Drinking.  25 

more,  is  the  goal  of  your  ambition,  the  northern 
pole  of  the  earth.  Set  out  for  it  on  foot,  or  in 
sledge,  and  try  your  way.  To  some  of  these  she 
gives  the  moderate  ration  of  alcohol,  to  some  she 
don't.  Now,  who  will  win  ?  The  race  is  fairly 
started,  and  the  men  are  away.  Not  one  of  them 
reaches  the  pole.  They  toil  and  toil,  endure  and 
endure.  Some  fail  and  fall,  and  yet  they  push  on. 
At  last,  it  is  clear  there  is  no  hope  of  reaching 
the  grand-stand,  and  that  the  few  who  can  work 
must  help  the  rest  back  to  the  ship.  Of  these  few 
are  some  who  do  and  some  who  don't  drink  ardent 
spirits. 

The  experiment  is  exciting,  unexampledly  fair  in 
its  method,  crucial  in  its  bearing.  Who  of  those 
men  has  been  nearest  to  the  pole  ?  who  of  them  of 
those  who  do  and  who  don't  drink  alcohol  shall  re- 
turn least  injured  and  strongest  to  the  ship?  One 
man  did  both  feats  easily,  and  he  was  of  those  who 
"  don't."  His  name  was  Adam  Ayles. 

One  step  more  in  her  great  researches,  Science 
sometimes  puts  men  who  work  for  her  in  a  posi- 
tion which  nothing  but  the  most  telling  ingenuity 
could  devise.  In  order  to  sink  coffer-dams,  she 
shuts  up  the  workers  under  a  pressure  of  three  and 
even  four  atmospheres — sixty  pounds  of  pressure 
on  every  square  inch  of  body.  In  that  pressure 
the  very  color  of  the  blood  is  changed  ;  the  dark 
venous  blood  is  made  red,  like  the  blood  in  the  ar- 
teries. Under  these  extreme  conditions  she  divides 


26  Moderate  Drinking. 

the  workers  into  those  who  do  and  those  who  don't 
drink  alcohol ;  and  again  the  advantage  rests  with 
those  who  don't. 

Thus  far,  then,  without  passion,  without  preju- 
dice, Science  tells  us  many  facts.  Wine,  with  all  its 
allies,  is  water  with  something  in  it.  That  some- 
thing a  chemical  body  belonging  to  a  family  of 
chemical  bodies,  not  one  of  which  is  a  food — enters 
in  no  way  into  the  grand  scheme  for  the  sustainment 
of  life  in  the  universe — enters  into  no  part  of  the 
scheme  for  the  sustainment  of  human  life  at  the  pe- 
riod when  that  life  is  most  helpless,  and  requires 
most  urgently  every  natural  necessity.  Through  all 
stages  of  life,  all  men  can  live  without  this  something; 
it  forms  no  part  of  the  body  of  man,  nor  of  any  ani- 
mal ;  it  makes  no  condition  of  animal  organs,  except 
what  is  of  the  nature  of  disease  ;  it  is  not  found  in  the 
healthy  state  within  the  precincts  of  the  body;  it  com- 
pares with  no  natural  form  or  standard  of  food  ;  it 
supplies  no  means  of  warmth  to  the  body,  but  re- 
duces the  natural  warmth.  Under  every  conceivable 
extreme  condition  of  heat,  of  cold,  of  pressure,  it 
reduces,  under  all  prolonged  and  trying  efforts, 
both  the  mental  and  the  physical  power. 

WHAT   ARDENT   SPIRIT    DOES. 

Is  nothing  done  to  the  body  by  alcohol,  then  ? 
say  you.  Science  answers  :  Yes.  Directly  the  most 
appreciable  influence  from  alcohol  is  felt,  a  great 
deal  is  done.  All  the  minute  blood-vessels  that  Icl 


Moderate  Drinking.  27 

the  blood  pass  through  them  into  the  extreme  parts 
of  the  body  are  reduced  in  power,  so  that  they  fill 
with  blood,  and  the  face  gets  flushed,  and  the  brain 
gets  flushed,  and  the  lungs  get  flushed,  and  the 
breathing  becomes  quick,  and  the  heart  increases 
in  its  beating  some  four  strokes  a  minute,  or  two 
hundred  and  forty  strokes  an  hour,  or  at  the  rate 
of  five  thousand  seven  hundred  and  sixty  extra 
strokes  in  an  entire  day. 

I  might  tell  of  much  more  that  would  be  done 
by  larger  quantities  of  alcohol  in  which  even  moder- 
ate drinkers  indulge,  but  I  keep  to  the  mention  of 
this  small  quantity,  because  it  is  the  smallest  that 
possibly  can  do  what  is  commonly  called  "  good." 
All  who  advocate  the  moderate  use  of  alcohol,  all 
who  apologize  for  the  use  of  alcohol  at  all,  would 
tell  you  that  they  would  not  recommend  any  man 
or  woman  to  use  alcohol  beyond  the  amount  that 
produces  these  effects.  They  are  the  effects  that 
would  be  induced  by  taking  what  the  late  Dr. 
Parkas  calls  the  dietetic  dose — namely,  from  one 
to  two  fluid  ounces  of  alcohol;  the  effects  that 
would  follow  the  taking  of  one  and  a  half  pints  of 
mild  beer,  containing  five  per  cent,  of  alcohol,  or 
half  that  quantity  of  French  wine,  containing  ten 
per  cent.,  according  to  his  great  authority.  To  pro- 
duce this  first  effect,  all  moderate  drinkers  plead 
for  alcohol.  They  ask  for  no  more.  They  admit 
that  if  more  be  taken,  some  worse  effects  will  fol- 
low. But  for  this  gentle  stimulation,  this  mild 


28  Moderate  Drinking. 

warming-up    surely  they  may  be  granted  a  salvo 
there. 

This  is  the  knotty  point  of  points.  There  is  not 
a  sane  man  :>r  woman  in  the  world  who  has  any 
knowledge  on  the  subject  at  all,  who  would  plead 
for  the  habitual  use  of  alcohol  beyond  this  stage  of 
its  action.  To  carry  it  a  stage  further,  so  as  to 
get  into  confusion  of  thought,  with  failure  of  lip, 
angry  passion,  thickness  of  speech,  headache,  nau- 
sea, a  little  too  free  communication  of  sentiment, 
or  conversation  rather  too  fast  to  be  perfectly  cool 
in  expression — oh,  fie!  why,  that  would  be  passing 
into  the  second  degree  of  alcoholic  influence.  Not 
to  put  too  fine  a  point  on  it,  it  would  be  an  ap- 
proach to  what  is  called,  not  intoxication  exactly, 
but  elevation,  moral  or  physical,  I  can  not  say 
which,  but  elevation  of  some  kind,  which  would  be 
decidedly  wrong  and  off  the  board. 

ALCOHOLIC   STAGES  AND   "RULE  NISI." 

I  confess  there  is  a  great  advance  of  opinion — a 
concensus  of  opinion,  I  think,  is  the  right  term — on 
this  part  of  our  subject ;  but  there  is  not  a  sufficient 
advance.  A  man  or  woman  sitting  down,  or  stand- 
ing up  if  you  like,  to  drink  wine  or  other  stimulant, 
always  starts  on  the  way  that  leads  through  four 
stages  toward  an.  easily  realizable  destination. 
Stage  one  is  that  gentle  stimulation  called  moder- 
ate excitement  or  support.  Stage  two  is  elevation 
—  whatever  that  may  mean — it  is  not  elevation  of 


Moderate  Drinking.  29 

character ;  of  that  I"am  satisfied.  Stage  three  is 
confusion  of  mind,  action,  and, deed,  with  sad  want 
of  elevation.  Stage  four  is  complete  concatenation 
of  circumstances  :  all  the  stages  perfectly  matured; 
the  journey  completed,  with  the  traveler  lying 
down,  absolutely  prostrated  in  mind  and  in  body. 
The  destination  is  reached,  and  found  to  be  a  hu- 
man being  dead  drunk  and  incapable. 

I  repeat,  whenever  a  person  begins  to  take  any 
portion  of  alcohol,  he  starts  on  that  journey  ;  starts 
just  as  distinctly  with  the  first  drop  swallowed,  as 
he  would  start  with  the  first  step  he  would  put  for- 
ward in  a  walk  from  the  pure  region  of  Hampstead 
Heath  into  the  outfall  of  that  Babylonish  sewage 
•which  greets  the  smiling  Thames  at  Barking  Creek. 
The  knotty  question  then  is  this,  Ought  a  person  to 
start  on  that  remarkable  journey  of  alcoholic  prog- 
ress at  all  ?  Should  he  try  any  stage  ?  Every  one 
says,  venture  not  on  the  last  three  stages  on  any  ac- 
count; but  some  say,  live  and  go  happy,  day  by 
day,  through  the  first;  walk  the  first  fourth  of  the 
way,  and  you  will  be  the  better  for  it.  It  is  a  nice 
exercise.  It  makes  your  heart  light;  it  refreshes 
your  mind;  it  quickens  your  secretions  ;  it  assists 
your  digestion.  The  wisest  men  of  all  ages  have 
daily  walked  this  stage  on  the  alcoholic  highway 
toward  the  point  of  concatenation  of  circum- 
stances. In  this  first  fourth  of  their  way,  with 
an  occasional  venture  a  little  further  when  the 
companionship  was  good,  the}'  have  given  the 


3O  Moderate  Drinking. 

world  its  wit,  its  humor,  its  poetry,  its  greatness. 
Suppose  they  have  lived  a  little  shorter  time  from 
the  exercises,  the}'  have  done  more  work  in  the 
shorter  time  than  they  would  have  done  in  a  longer 
time  under  duller  circumstances;  so  that  the  ad- 
vantage, on  the  whole,  is  with  this  moderate  indul- 
gence in  alcohol.  Indulgence  just  a  fourth  of  the 
way  on  toward  danger;  never  further,  except  on 
rarest  occasions ;  and  then  certainly  not  quite  half- 
way— to  the  foot  of  Mount  Elevation  at  furthest, 
and  no  further,  for  sake  of  body  and  mind  alike. 

This,  in  plain  language,  is  the  argument  of  the 
moderate  school  of  thought.  It  is  met  point  blank 
by  the  abstaining  school,  which  calls  out  with  all 
its  sympathetic  might:  Take  not  a  step  on  that 
highway.  It  is  the  devil's  highway !  It  is  -the 
grand  model  of  his  engineering  skill ;  it  is  wide,  it 
is  open,  it  is  straight,  it  is  smooth,  it  is  filled  with 
jolly  companions  every  one,  it  is  fenced  with  pleas- 
ures, it  is  rich  in  historical  reminiscences,  but  there 
is  this  peculiarity  about  it,  that  there  is  not  an  inch 
of  it,  not  a  hair's-breadth  of  it  safe.  Therefore  keep 
off  it  altogether.  It  is  the  devil's  highway  ! 

We  listen  to  these  opposing  voices.  The  first 
are  seductive,  and  sound  even  as  if  they  were 
voices  of  men  of  science  and  knowledge.  The 
second  are  fierce,  solemn,  earnest,  but  not  voices 
of  philosophic  ring.  They  are  pathetic,  persuasive 
—perhaps  in  some  moments  terrible;  that  is  all. 

What,  O  Science,  say  you  to  this  contention? 


Moderate  Drinking.  31 

Be  passionless  as  ever,  but  speak  and  tell  us  your 
mind. 

Listen  carefully  to  the  whole  argument  of  Science 
as  she  tells  her  mind  fairly  and  faithfully.  She  tells 
you  nothing  whatsoever  about  the  devil  and  his  de- 
vices, but  that  there  is,  as  claimed,  a  certain  degree 
of  moderation  which  does  not  seem  to  be  attended 
with  much  evil  if  it  be  closely  followed.  She  grants 
that  the  moderate  of  the  moderates  may  have  a  rule 
nisi.  She  says  to  a  man  of  sound  health :  If  you 
are  in  first-rate  condition  of  body,  if  you  can  throw 
off  freely  a  cause  of  oppression  and  depression,  if 
you  are  actively  engaged  in  the  open  air,  if  you 
have  nothing  to  do  that  requires  great  exactitude 
or  precision  of  work,  if  you  are  not  subjected  to 
any  worry  of  mind  or  mental  strain,  if  you  sleep 
well,  if  you  are  properly  clothed  and  are  not  ex- 
posed to  excesses  of  heat  or  cold,  if  your  appetite 
is  good  and  you  can  get  plenty  of  wholesome  food — 
if  you  are  favored  with  all  these  advantages,  then 
you  may  indulge  in  Dr.  Parkes'  moderate  potation 
of  wine,  or  beer,  or  spirit.  You  are  strong  enough 
to  bear  the  infliction,  and  may,  without  any  great 
risk,  enjoy  it.  But  these  favorable  conditions  are 
all  necessary.  If  you  are  limited  in  respect  to  ex- 
ercise, if  you  are  of  sedentary  habits,  if  you  are 
much  worn  or  reduced  in  mind,  body,  or  estate, 
then  that  small  amount  of  alcohol  is  adding  to  all 
your  troubles,  and  you  will  leave  it  off  if  you  are 
wise. 


32  Moderate  Drinking. 

I  can  imagine  with  what  pleasure  some  of  the 
world  of  pleasure  may  receive  such  tidings  as 
these.  The  salt  of  the  earth,  and  the  salt  is  good, 
can  then  enjo}^  its  luxury,  just  as  it  can  keep  a  car- 
riage,  a  livery  servant,  a  horse,  or  any  other  unneces- 
sary, but  pleasant  extravagance.  It  can  take  wine 
in  moderation.  What  more  is  required  ?  Science, 
in  her  most  Puritanical  utterances,  gives,  so  far,  her 
consent. 

It  is  quite  true,  but  take  her  consent  with  her 
provisions  equally  true  and  very  solemn. 

Science  says,  you  who  can  afford  the  luxury  may 
use  it  with  the  perfect  understanding  that  it  is  a 
luxury.  Positively,  solemnly,  it  is  never  a  neces- 
sity, and  if  the  expression  of  truth  be  absolutely 
rendered,  you  are  better  and  safer  without  even 
that  moderate  indulgence. 

What  is  the  danger? 

The  danger  is  that  attaching  to  all  luxuries :  that 
they  being  unnecessary,  are  apt,  first,  to  lapse  into 
self-imposed  necessities;  next,  to  become  tyrants 
and  bad  masters,  and  to  set  up  bad  examples  by 
which  many,  who  are  not  fortunate  even  among  the 
easy  and  luxurious,  fall. 

A  learned  man,  who  is,  I  assume,  a  man  of  science, 
has,  however,  bidden  us  ignore  this  matter  of  set- 
ting examples.  It  betrays,  he  thinks,  weakness 
and  want  of  logic.  If  there  are  a  number  of  weak 
creatures  male  and  female,  who  by  first  following 
moderate  example,  are  led  to  go  further  than  that 


Moderate  Drinking.  33 

example,  and  who  fall  into  perdition,  let  them  lall 
That  is  their  lookout,  and  examplers  are  faultless. 
Stint  your  own  enjoyment  to  save  a  man  from 
drink !  As  well  take  your  warm  overcoat  off  your 
own  back  to  save  a  beggar  from  death  by  cold. 
That  may  be  philanthropy,  it  is  not  science. 

Stop,  says  Science,  not  quite  so  fast  there.  I  saidj 
ages  ago,  by  one  of  my  wisest  servants,  also  a  phy- 
sician, a  sentence  which  another  immortal  man,  who 
was  not  one  of  my  disciples,  happily  reiterated: 
"  Be  not  deceived  ;  God  is  not  mocked.  Whatso- 
ever a  man  soweth  that  shall  he  also  reap."  I  really 
meant  by  this  sowing,  the  mere  casting  into  the 
susceptible  soil  the  smallest  seed  that  will  bring 
forth  a  harvest ;  and  if  you,  by  your  example,  sow 
perdition,  in  the  purest  physical  and  worldly  sense, 
you  and  yours  will  reap  perdition.  This  is  in  the 
order  of  nature,  from  sowing  and  to  reaping  ;  but, 
adds  Science,  there  is  apart  from  such  results  as 
these,  another.  When  you,  luxurious  man,  in  your 
luxurious  resolve,  have  made  a  self-imposed  neces- 
sity, you  have  created  a  condition  of  body  which, 
being  unnatural,  is  calculated  to  feed  itself.  So 
you  have  sown  again,  your  own  body  being  the 
susceptible  field,  and  in  it  you  may  reap  the  har- 
vest. You  have  set  up  within  yourself  a  desire 
which  nothing  but  the  most  zealous  exercise  of 
your  discriminating  and  resolute  will  can  meet  and 
keep  under  subjection.  You  must,  therefore,  be 
ever  on  guard.  Trespass  but  a  iitLs  on  your  reso 


34  Moderate  Drinking. 

.ution,  and  your  false  desire  gains  power  with  the 
most  perplexing  decision.  In  this  way,  continues 
Science,  some  of  the  very  strongest  and  best  of  my 
own  sons  have  been  tried  and  overcome.  She  di- 
rects our  minds  to  one  of  these,  whose  illustrious 
name  is  the  boast  of  this  country,  and  she  gives 
you  his  own  confession  word  for  word.  The  case 
she  explains  is  that  of  the  great  man  who  first  dis- 
covered, by  experiments  on  himself,  the  effects 
of  inhaling  laughing-gas  —  Sir  Humphry  Davy. 
No  one  can  accuse  him  of  want  of  will,  or  skill,  or 
knowledge,  or  goodness.  But  he  made  it  a  habit, 
gradually  acquired,  to  inhale  this  intoxicating  gas, 
until  at  last  he  declared  that  he  could  not  look  at  a 
gas-holder,  could  not  even  watch  a  person  breathing 
without  experiencing  an  all  but  irresistible  desire 
to  indulge  in  this  form  of  intoxication.  Who  are 
,  you  then,  she  inquires,  that  can  resist  these  subtle 
influences  from  intoxicating  agents?  How  know 
you  that  you  are  powerful  enough  to  oppose  self- 
inflicted  necessity  ?  There  was  no  one  who  ever 
lapsed  into  danger  who  did  not  begin  by  little  and 
little  to  learn,  first  to  desire,  and  afterward  to  feed 
desire.  Wisely,  sedately,  without  the  least  feeling, 
I  warn  you  not  to  create  that  desire,  and  then  can 
you  never  be  betrayed. 

And  to  this  warning  Science  once  again  adds  her 
cautious  instruction.  It  is  true,  she  repeats,  that 
men  who  are  favorably  placed  may  seem  to  escape 
injury  from  the  moderate  use  of  strong  drink.  But 


Moderate  Drinking.  35 

still,  on  this  point,  she  has  a  word  of  information. 
She  proves,  from  hard  facts,  that  even  those  who 
are  moderate,  live  less  longer  lives  than  those  who 
abstain  altogether.  She  holds  up  nine  years  of 
actuarial  calculations  of  a  provident  institution,  in 
which  there  were  two  classes  of  insurers — one  class 
which  drank  moderately,  another  which  abstained 
altogether.  She  shows  that  in  the  general  section, 
including  those  who  were  moderate  drinkers,  2,002 
deaths  were  expected  to  occur,  and  1,977  actually 
did  occur,  or  within  twenty-five  of  the  expected 
number.  She  shows  that  in  the  abstaining  section 
I, no  deaths  were,  by  the  same  mode  of  calculation, 
expected  to  occur,  but  that  actually  only  80 1  deaths 
did  occur,  or  309  less  than  the  expected  number. 
Truly,  she  exclaims  again,  by  the  voice  of  her  es- 
teemed interpreter,  Dr.  Parkes,  "the  difference  in 
mortality  of  these  two  classes  is  quite  extraordi- 
nary." 

Thus  you  learn  that  Science,  when  she  comes  to 
matter  of  fact,  though  she  admits  a  possible  excuse 
for  moderate  drinking,  does  not  favor  it;  and  when 
she  brings  us  face  to  face  with  some  other  figures, 
showing  the  results  of  the  habit  that  springs 
from  moderation,  she  strikes  us  almost  dumb  with 
the  severity  of  her  warning.  Lesson  upon  lesson 
is  here  piled  before  us  from  her  hard,  but  faithful 
voice.  Listen  to  some  few  of  these. 

If  a  man  becomes  intemperate  at  twenty  years  of 
gge,  he  will  only  live  i$}4  years  instead  of  44  years 


36  Moderate  Drinking. 

If  a  man  becomes  intemperate  at  thirty  years  of 
age,  he  will  only  live  13^  years  instead  of  36  years, 

Amongst  men  who  are  engaged  in  the  sale  of  in* 
toxicating  liquors,  the  temptation  to  intemperance 
Ll!s  with  such  force,  that  138  of  these  men  die  in 
proportion  to  a  mean  of  100  folio  wing,  seventy  other 
occupations. 

Out  of  every  100  persons  who  were  taken  into 
Colney  Hatch  Asylum  in  one  year,  forty  were 
taken  from  insanity,  directly  or  indirectly  produced 
by  alcohol. 

Out  of  900  inquests  held  per  year  by  the  coroner 
for  Central  Middlesex  (Dr.  Hardwicke)  on  persons 
«  who  have  died  violent  deaths,  deaths  requiring  an 
inquest,  450,  or  one-half,  are  due  directly  or  indi 
rectly  to  the  effects  of  drink. 

In  England  in  the  year  1876  as  many  as  1,120 
deaths  were  directly  recorded  against  drink,  the 
persons  dying  in  drink;  while  the  deaths,  direct 
and  indirect,  due  to  the  same  cause,  recently  most 
ably  calculated  by  Dr.  Norman  Kerr  or  Dr.  Mor- 
ton, are  14,710  wholly  due  and  24,577  partially  due 
to  alcoKol ;  a  total  of  39,287,  and  the  lowest  pos 
sible  estimate. 

We  have  advanced  now  a  second  step  in  our 
readings  of  science  on  the  subject  of  strong  drinks. 
In  our  first  step  she  denounced  all  these  drinks  as 
necessities ;  in  the  second  step  she  permits  them  as 
luxuries;  with  all  due  notice  of. the  consequences 
.hat  attend  the  indulsjeRce.  In  this  matter  she 


Moderate  Drinking,  37 

does  not  directly  prohibit,  because  she  does  not 
consider  it  her  province  to  interfere  with  the  free 
will  of  man,  but  she  issues  advice  which  is  true  to 
the  letter,  based  on  facts  which  are  true  to  the  let- 
ter; and  that  advice  is  practically  prohibitory,  if  it 
be  honestly  followed. 

DRINK  AND   NATIONAL  DEVELOPMENT. 

There  remains  still  one  other  subject  for  her  to 
speak  upon — a  subject  which  is  thought  by  many 
to  bring  out  the  stronghold  of  moderation.  Let 
us  have  the  subject  set  forth  and  the  answer  sup- 
plied. It  is  said  that  the  use  of  wine  and  its  allies 
has  been  the  source  of  the  power  of  the  most  pow- 
erful nations.  It  is  said  that  the  wine-cup  has  been 
the  fountain  of  that  wit  and  poetry  and  artistic 
wisdom,  if  I  may  use  the  term,  which  has  made 
the  illustrious  men  of  the  world  so  illustrious  and 
so  generally  useful  as  they  have  been  to  the  world. 
Take  away  the  wine-cup,  it  is  argued,  and  the 
whole  intellectual  life  must  needs  become  flat, 
stale,  and  unprofitable.  It  were  indeed  a  pity  if 
this  were  the  look-out  of  total  abstinence.  A  sec- 
ond deluge  of  water,  with  not  so  much  as  a  grace- 
ful dove  and  an  olive-branch  to  cheer  the  trackless 
waste.  It  were  indeed  a  pity  of  pities  if  this  were 
the  final  look-out  of  total  abstinence  in  the  intel- 
lectual sphere.  Can  it  be  that  all  intellectual  en- 
ergy and  hilarity  must  die  out  with  the  abolition 
of  the  wine-cup?  My  friend,  Dr.  Farr  mourns 


38  Moderate  Drinking. 

that  the  very  eloquence  and  fire  and  soul  of  a  din- 
ner of  city  aldermen,  with  the  mighty  Lord  Mayor 
•at  the  head  of  the  table,  and  Gog  and  Magog 
bursting  with  intellectual  admiration,  would  under 
such  a  revolution  all  go  out  together — 

"  And,  like  the  baseless  fabric  of  a  vision, 
Leave  not  a  rack  behind." 

At  first  thought,  certainly  it  makes  one's  blood  run 
cold  to  think  of  such  a  catastrophe.  Let  us  see  if 
things  are  really  so  bad.  What  does  Science  say 
on  this  awful  topic? 

Science,  ever  fair,  says  that  some  nations  and 
wonderful  pecples  that  have  lived  have  been  wine- 
drinkers  at  certain  periods  of  their  history.  But 
she  draws  ^ilso  this  most  important  historical  les- 
son, that  fLe  great  nations  were,  as  a  rule,  water- 
drinkers  purely  until  they  became  great;  then  they 
took- to  wine  and  other  luxuries,  and  soon  became 
little.  Up  to  the  time  of  Cyrus,  the  Persians  were 
water-drinkers.  They  became  all-powerful,  and 
then  also  became  such  confirmed  wine-drinkers, 
that,  if  they  had  some  great  duty  to  perform,  they 
discussed  the  details  of  it  when  inflamed  with  wine, 
anc.  rejected,  the  judgment  or  revised  it  when  they 
had  become  sober,  and  vice  versa.  Surely  this  was 
the  acme  of  perfection  as  a  test  of  wine.  Curi- 
ously it  didn't  answer.  With  its  luxury,  Persia 
succumbed — fell  into  hands  of  less  luxurious  con- 
querors, and,  like  a  modern  rake,  found  its  prog- 


Moderate  Drinking.  39 

ress  anything  but  promising  in  the  end.  The 
Greeks  in  their  first  and  simple  days  were  clothed 
in  victory  over  men  and  over  nature.  They  grew 
powerful ;  they  sang  and  danced,  and  all  but  wor- 
shiped wine  ;  but  it  did  not  sustain  them  in  their 
grandeur  as  it  ought  to  have  done  if  the  theory  of 
such  sustainment  be  correct.  The  Roman  rule  be- 
came overwhelming  out  of  the  simplicity  of  its  first 
life.  It  rose  into  luxury  and  made  wine  almost  a 
god.  But  Rome  fell.  Wine  did  not  sustain  it.  It 
is  all  through  history  the  same.  There  is  not  an 
instance,  when  we  come  to  analysis  of  fact  and  cir- 
cumstance, in  which  wine  has  not  been  to  nations 
as  to  man  individually,  a  mocker.  It  has  been  the 
death  of  nations.  It  has  swept  down  the  nations 
as  it  sweeps  down  men  in  the  prime  of  their  life 
and  in  the  midst  of  their  glory. 

POST   HOC   ET  PROPTER   HOC. 

When  we  face  the  question  of  the  influence  of 
wine  on  the  individual  greatness  of  great  men, 
Science  in  candor  again  admits  that  there  have  been 
illustrious  wine-drinkers.  The  statement  is  unan- 
sw-erable.  But  when  to  that  statement  is  added 
the  rider,  that  the  men  were  great  because  they  were 
wine-drinkers,  she  demurs  at  once.  She  asks  the 
man  who  makes  that  statement,  How  do  you  know  ? 
How  can  you  know  what  those  great  men  would 
have  been  if  they  had  never  tasted  wine  or  other 
strong  drink  ?  You  are  reasoning,  she  says,  on  the 


4O  Moderate  Drinking. 

principle  of  "post  hoc  et propter  hoc" — after  this  and 
therefore  this — a  common  and  convenient  plan,  es- 
pecially amongst  physicians  and  politicians,  of 
which  she  gives  the  following  very  practical  illus- 
tration : 

A  gentleman,  well-to-do  and  happy  in  his  worldly 
possessions,  having  dined  rather  heavily  and  very 
late  in  the  evening,  fell  asleep  in  his  chair  before 
the  fire,  and  woke  after  a  long  doze  with  a  severe 
pain  in  his  stomach.  His  wife  administered  her 
simple  domestic  remedies,  but  as  her  skill  seemed 
to  fail,  she  persuaded  the  sufferer  to  put  on  his  thick 
ulster  and  walk  down  to  a  fashionable  physician  in 
the  city  where  they  lived  and  get  his  learned  ad- 
vice.  The  physician  in  question  had  an  enormous 
reputation.  He  was  reputed  to  be  eminently  sound 
and  practical.  He  was  skilled  in  all  pathies,  and 
had  been  dubbed  by  a  well-known  wit  whom 
he  had  "cured,"  "the  eminent  Omniopath."  He 
had  a  saying,  which  each  day  of  his  life  he  repeated 
to  his  patients  some  four  or  five  times  at  least, 
which  stamped  his  soundness.  It  was  a  borrowed 
saying,  but  it  answered — 

"  Drink  deep,  or  taste  not  the  Pierian  spring ; 
A  little  knowledge  is  a  dangerous  thing." 

And  of  this  spring  he  was  believed  to  drink  so 
deeply,  that  some  said  he  sat  up  all  night  at  the 
source  of  it  taking  it  in  like  a  fish.  The  sufferer  in 
the  ulster  coat  had  no  fear,  therefore,  though  it  was 


Moderate  Drinking.  41 

very  late  at  night,  of  not  finding  his  adviser  awake 
and  ready  for  an  emergency.  His  expectations 
were  realized.  He  found  the  learned  man  in  his 
study,  and  at  his  usual  exercises  connected  with 
the  classical  spring.  He  told  the  reason  of  his  late 
call  and  related  the  history  of  his  suffering.  The 
doctor  grasped  the  case  in  a  minute,  explained  the 
nature  of  it,  summed  up  the  possible  dangers,  if 
the  worst  came  to  the  worst,  and  then  proceeded 
in  due  form  to  prepare  for  the  prevention  of  the 
worst  by  writing  a  prescription.  The  prescription 
was  for  one  small  pilule,  which  was  to  be  taken  by 
the  patient  the  moment  he  arrived  at  home.  All 
thanks  and  admiration  the  suffering  man  departed, 
and  now  his  next  care  was  to  get  that  prescription 
made  up.  He  called,  therefore,  on  his  way  home 
at  the  house  of  a  chemist  and  druggist.  He  was 
not  so  fortunate  here.  The  drowsy  owner  of 
this  establishment,  caring  nothing  about  classical 
springs,  had  gone  to  rest  and  was  fast  asleep.  It 
required  three  or  four  vigorous  pulls  of  the  night 
bell  to  pull  him  out  of  bed.  At  last  a  window  in 
the  second  floor  above  the  shop  opened,  a  head  and 
shoulders  came  out  of  it,  and  a  voice,  not  very 
soothing  in  its  accents,  asked  what  was  wanted. 
"  I  want  you,"  said  the  sufferer  in  his  blandest  and 
most  winning  manner,  "to  be  kind  enough  to  come 
down  and  make  up  a  pilule  (emphasizing  the  pilule) 
for  me.  It  is  only  one  pilule,  and  it  will  not  take 
you  a  minute."  "  Sha'n't  come,"  was  the  curt  re. 


42  Moderate  Drinking. 

ply;  "if  it's  nothing  but  a  pilule  you  can  do  with- 
out it."  "  But  1  can't,"  was  the  answer.  "  Then 
you  must  get  it  somewhere  else,"  were  the  words 
that  came  back  to  the  sufferer.  "  Where  else  shall 
I  go?"  was  the  imploring  inquiry.  The  answe- 
dropped  like  a  shot,  and  the  window  went  down 
with  a  rattle  that  was  almost  terrific.  When  the 
sufferer  regained  his  temper  he  remembered,  by 
recalling  the  maps  he  once  drew  at  school,  that  the 
place  he  was  directed  to  go  to  was  somewhere  m 
the  Holy  Land.  It  was  clearly  too  late  to  go  there, 
and  as  the  walls  of  the  place  had  been  leveled  some 
three  thousand  years  or  so,  the  chances  were  twenty 
to  one  against  finding  a  druggist  on  the  spot,  even 
if  he  got  there  ;  so  he  took*  immediately  the  wise 
course  of  going  home  to  his  wife.  The  wife  was 
naturally  indignant  at  the  conduct  to  which  her 
husband  had  been  exposed ;  but  being  a  shrewd, 
observing  lady,  she  detected  that  he  was  very  much 
better,  and  by  her  advice,  instead  of  worrying  him- 
self any  more  about  the  prescription  for  that  night, 
he  went  to  bed,  slept  soundly,  and  in  the  morning 
woke  as  well  as  ever  he  was  in  his  life. 

By  arrangement,  on  going  into  town  next  day, 
he  called  on  his  physician,  and  joyfully  reported  a 
clean  bill  of  health.  The  doctor's  eyes  gleamed 
with  triumph.  "'Drink  deep' — no,  I  don't  mean 
that;  I  mean  'A  stitch  in  time  saves  nine.'  That 
pilule — that  one  little  pilule,  hardly  more  than  a 
globule,  saved  you  all  the  impending  trouble/' 


Moderate  Drinking.  43 

"But,"  replies  the  patient  nervously,  "  excuse  me 
Bir,  I  never  took  it,"  and  then  he  told  the  sad  story 
of  the  drowsy  chemist,  and  the  altercation,  and  the 
place  he  was  told  to  go  to,  and  the  advice  of  his 
wife,  and  the  complete  story. 

You  will  expect  that  the  physician  was  abashed. 
Not  a  bit  of  it.  The  Empress  Josephine  was  not 
more  ready  at  a  moment's  notice  to  step  into  the 
carriage  of  her  Imperial  Master  than  that  physician 
was  with  his  explanation.  "You,  sir,"  said  he, 
"  are  an  idiosyncrasy.  You  are  an  exception  to  all 
rule,  and  by  that  you  prove  the  rule.  That  medi- 
cine was  used  by  Dioscorides  and  the  other  Greek 
physicians  ;  it  was  used  by  the  immortal  Galen  and 
the  Roman  physicians ;  it  was  used  by  Amando 
Saneto  de  Joannes  and  the  other  mediaeval  physi- 
cians ;  it  was  used  by  the  learned  Michael  Albertus 
in  the  last  century ;  it  was  used  by  all  these  emi- 
nent men  in  cases  such  as  yours,  and  in  this  day  I 
have  myself,  with  many  more,  resorted  to  it  iji 
hundreds  of  the  same  cases  to  yours,  without,  I  had 
almost  said,  a  single  failure.  You,  it  is  true,  got 
well  without  it ;  but  where  would  the  other  suffer- 
ers have  been  if  they  had  not  had  it?  No,  sir,  the 
exception  proves  the  rule,  and  you  are  fortunate  in 
what  has  happened.  Be  thankful  it  is  no  worse." 
The  patient  listened,  as  all  patients  should,  with  be- 
coming modesty,  but  still  astonished  and  bewil 
dered.  He  was  for  a  moment  inclined  to  ask 
whether  all  the  other  sufferers  might  not  possibly 


44  Moderate  Drinking. 

have  got  well  as  he  did  without  the  pilule  But 
he  stood  in  the  presence  of  a  tremendous  autnority. 
Moreover,  he  had  got  the  prescription  for  that  re- 
markable pilule  in  his  pocket ;  and,  what  is  more, 
he  had  paid  for  it.  So  silently  he  went  his  way, 
mingled  once  again  with  the  crowd,  believed  in  the 
pilule  after  all,  swore  by  it,  and  was  never  tired  of 
descanting  on  his  own  singular  constitution,  which 
put  him  even  beyond  the  necessity  for  the  exercise 
of  an  experience  that  well-nigh  had  descended  from 
^Esculapius  himself. 

You  smile  at  this  illustration  of  the  post  hoc  et 
propter  hoc.  Science  does  not  smile.  You  think 
that  physician  knew  better  than  what  he  said. 
Science  says  probably  not.  To  err  is  human,  and 
the  narrative  is  supplied  for  one  purpose  only  in  re- 
lation to  our  subject,  and  that  is  to  suggest  to  the 
minds  of  those  who  so  readily  and  confidently  as- 
sert that  this  great  man  and  that  great  man  would 
not  have  been  what  he  was  had  he  not  taken  wine, 
the  self-question  is  not  that  post  hoc  et  propter  hoc. 
How  can  any  one  tell  what  the  great  man  would 
have  been  if  he  had  abstained  from  wine  alto- 
gether ? 

In  the  writings  of  some  men  of  genius  there  are 
passages  obviously  written  under  the  influence  of 
wine,  which  passages,  for  the  sake  of  those  men  of 
genius  and  for  the  world,  we  would  we  could  blot 
out  forever.  If  under  some  better  influence  the 
inspiration  of  these  men  had  been  in  those  mo. 


Moderate  Drinking.  45 

ments  of  writing  devoted  to  purer  and  finer 
thoughts,  would  the  result  have  been  less  worthy? 
Science  replies  on  this  point  by  inference  only. 
The  men  perhaps  thought  so  themselves  in  their 
sober  hours.  Nor  wrote  they  anything,  nor  did 
they  anything,  of. truly  noble  character  under  wine. 
In  the  whole  history  of  man,  find,  if  you  can,  a 
truly  noble  deed  done  under  the  excitement  of  the 
wine-cup. 

CONCLUSION. 

And  thus  are  we  brought  to  our  last  step  on  the 
question  before  us.  The  past  history  of  mankind 
yields  no  demonstrable  proof  that  nations  and  men 
have  owed  their  power  and  their  ability  to  wine  or 
any  strong  drink,  moderately  or  immoderately 
taken.  Suppose  we  leave  the  verdict  there  as 
something  wanting  proof.  No  one  can  say  that  is 
unfair. 

From  this  position  we  may  turn  to  modern  life, 
and  test  anew  for  the  truth.  If  those  who  say  that 
wine  moderately  used,  is,  in  spite  of  all  its  dangers, 
necessary  to  the  sustainment  of  current  power,  in- 
tellectual and  physical,  then  it  follows,  as  plain  as 
night  follows  morn,  that  we  who  abstain  are  intel- 
lectually, physically,  morally  inferior  to  those  who 
call  themselves  moderate  drinkers.  Is  it  so?  The 
proof  lies  with  those  who  make  the  proposition 
and  who  by  inference  declare  in  face  of  day  their 
own  superiority.  Let  them  —  I  say  it  with  my 


46  Moderate  Drinking. 

whole  heart — let  them  by  their  superiority  prove 
it.  For  my  part,  I  am  content  to  leave  the  prool 
with  history. 

To  conclude.  From  my  readings  of  Science  she 
gives  no  countenance  to  the  use  of  strong  drink  in 
any  sense,  except  medically  and  under  scientific 
direction.  She  faithfully  records  its  evils ;  she  hon- 
estly exposes  its  dangers ;  she  exposes  the  gross 
and  vain  fallacies  by  which  it  is  supported  ;  and  if, 
in  her  absolute  fairness,  she  admits  it  under  certain 
arbitrary  restrictions  as  a  luxury,  she  condemns  it 
as  a  traitorous  evil. 

It  were  pleasanter  far  to  apologize  through 
Science  for  indulgence  in  alcohol  than  to  speak 
through  her  as  I  have  done  to-day.  But  my  busi- 
ness in  this  world,  in  the  short  time  I  have  to  live 
in  it,  is  to  dare  to  speak  what  I  believe  to  be  true, 
irrespective  of  all  personal  pleasures  and  of  all  per- 
sonal penalties — to  dare  to  speak  as  a  votary,  rather 
than  a  follower,  of  fashion  in  scientific  service. 
Thereby,  in  speaking  on  the  subject  that  has  now- 
engaged  us,  I  may  unintentionally  offend  some  nat- 
ures. I  hope  not,  but  this  I  fear  is  the  fate  of  all 
votaries,  and  must  be  accepted  as  such.  I  recall 
one  votary,  who,  in  introducing  the  light  of  a  new 
and  purer  faith  into  the  world,  in  the  course  of  his 
career  once  exclaimed  :  "  If  an  offense  come  out  of 
truth,  better  is  it  that  the  offense  come  than  the 
truth  be  concealed."  With  all  gratitude  to  its  au- 
thor, that  statement  deserves  to  be  echoed  and  re- 


Moderate  Drinking  47 

echoed  by  every  one  who  represents  the  cause  I 
have  ventured  to  plead,  and  never  more  in  this 
country  than  now.  It  requires  no  depth  of  diag- 
nostic skill  to  detect  how  serious  is  the  diseased 
condition  of  this  country  at  the  present  time — how 
dangerous  are  the  combinations  of  afflicting  causes. 
Luxury  blindly  fattening  itself  for  easy  prey  ;  want 
eagerly  watching  how  it  may  rush  to  relieve  its 
misery;  and  both  fed  by  an  agent  which,  with 
equal  facility,  ministers  to  the  slothful  indifference 
of  one  and  the  sleepless  passion  of  the  other.  In 
such  a  time  as  this,  is  it  an  offense  to  attempt  to  ex- 
orcise  from  our  midst  an  agent  so  maddening,  so 
devilish,  so  deadly?  If  it  be,  let  the  offense  come; 
for  then  also  is  it  an  offense  to  wish  that  the  future 
history  of  our  still  self-enslaved  land  may  be  a  his- 
tory of  soberness  sanity,  health,  happiness,  and 
spotless  freedom. 


THE 


ALCOHOL* 


THE 

MEDICAL  PROFESSION  AND  ALCOHOL 

AN   INAUGURAL   ADDRESS 

BY  BENJAMIN  WARD  RICHARDSON,  M.D.,  F.R.S., 
President  of  the  British  Medical  Temperance  Association^ 

"  Be  stirring  as  the  time  ;  be  fire  with  fire  ; 
Threaten  the  threatener,  and  outface  the  brow 
Of  bragging  horror.     So  shall  inferior  eyes, 
That  gather  their  behavior  from  the  great, 
Grow  great  by  your  example." 

OUR  national  poet  made  these  lines  address 
themselves  to  a  living  power  he  had  in  his  mind 
which  he  wished  for  his  dramatic  purpose  to  excite 
into  vigorous  action.  The  words  meant  an  instiga- 
tion to  sharp,  decisive,  and  real  warfare  against  an 
armed  threatener.  To-day  in  relation  to  actual 
war  no  such  words  are  necessary  ;  but  there  are 
struggles — warfares,  if  we  like  to  call  them  so — to 
which  the  words,  and  the  thoughts  expressed  by 
the  words,  wondrously  apply.  The  civilized  world 
is  just  now  in  open  hostility  to  a  threatener  which,  of 
all  others,  has,  time  out  of  mind,  been  most  deadly 
ruinous,  cruel,  and  devastating.  A  threatener, 
grafted  on  to  a  superstition,  self-inflicted  by  man 
on  man,  that  he,  out  of  the  whole  circle  and  chain 
of  living  creatures,  must  have  for  his  life  and 
sustainment  a  thing  to  drink  so  foreign  to  his  na- 
ture that  he  must  learn  to  endure  it  before  he  likes 
it,  and  then  suffer  endless  penalties  for  the  liking 
he  has  acquired.  In  the  fifty  years  which  I  have 
lived  this  superstition  has  been,  by  direct  and  in- 


4  AN  INAUGURAL  ADDRESS.  • 

direct  means,  the  cause  of  death  to  at  least  two 
millions  of  human  beings  in  our  country  alone. 
What  war,  what  conqueror  in  the  histories  of  the 
histories  of  the  world,  ever  destroyed  forty  thou- 
sand persons  a  year  in  one  country  every  year  for 
forty  years  ;  what  plague,  pestilence,  or  famine 
ever  committed  such  havoc  ? 

Nor  is  it  a  question  only  of  death  that  is  to  be 
considered.  There  are  the  consequences  also  to  the 
survivors.  There  are  the  diseases,  the  griefs,  the 
shame,  the  disgrace,  the  helplessness,  the  homeless- 
ness,  the  poverty,  the  crime,  the  whole  of  the 
domestic  anarchies  incident  to  the  mortality. 
These  must  be  added  to  the  triumphs  of  the 
merciless  threatener,  the  Juggernaut  of  civiliza- 
tion. 

I  am  by  profession  a  healer  of  men.  I  solemnly 
swore  on  entering  the  splendid  profession  to  which 
I  belong,  I  solemnly  swore  as  my  brethren  of  the 
same  calling  have  each  and  all  solemnly  sworn, 
that  I  would  consider  it  a  part  of  my  holy  duty,  as 
long  as  I  lived,  as  a  capable  rational  being  to  prac- 
tise it,  to  respect,  of  all  things,  life  ;  to  relieve  pain 
and  disease,  to  alleviate,  and  to  the  very  height  of 
known  skill,  according  to  my  gifts,  to  stave  off 
death  from  my  fellow-men.  Can  I,  in  conscience, 
in  the  remembrance  of  so  solemn  an  obligation,  be 
anything  else  than  a  foe  to  so  mortal  a  threatener  as 
that  which  slays  forty  thousand  of  my  countrymen 
per  year,  and  accompanies  the  act  with  all  the  ac- 
cessory ferocities  and  evils  attendant  on  such 
wholesale  destruction?  I  ask  any  member  of  the 
body  of  Medicine,  \yho  is  under  the  same  obliga 


THE  MEDICAL  PROFESSION  AND  ALCOHOL.        5 

tion,  if  he  can  reconcile  the  tolerance  of  this  prac- 
tical and  merciless  threatener  with  the  conscien 
tious  fulfillment  of  his  binding  obligations  ?  What 
men  of  any  class  are  so  encompasssd  with  an  ob- 
ligation touching  the  lives  and  interests  of  their 
brother  men  ? 

One  of  the  objects  ^yhy  the  society  of  medical 
men  which  meets  together  now  has  been  formed, 
is  to  threaten  the  threatener,  and,  as  the  poet 
would  continue — 

"To  outface  the  brow 
Of  bragging  horror." 

For  this  superstition  is,  of  all  superstitions,  a  brag- 
ging horror  of  the  truest  kind.  No  man  at  table 
lifts  his  glass  defiantly  to  his  neighbor  to  encour- 
age him  to  the  same,  or  to  laugh  at  him  for  non- 
compliance,  without  having  the  consciousness  that 
the  act  is  simple  bragging,  and  that  the  end  of  it, 
as  a  lesson,  is,  in  the  strictest  sense  of  the  practice 
of  it,  mere  horror,  which  he  could  not  look  at 
were  it  put  before  him  in  all  its  wholesale  woe. 

We,  as  a  society,  are  a  small  body.  We  number 
a  hundred  at  most,  all  told ;  so  that  I  am,  by  the 
pleasure  of  the  members,  as  their  captain,  a  mere 
centurion  in  the  army  of  medicine.  Still  it  is  a 
notable  fact  that  fhere  should  be  one  hundred 
medical  men  joined  together  with  the  rest  of  the 
abstaining  community  to  make  war  against  the 
threatener.  We  assume  at  this  moment  to  exist 
only  as  a  nucleus.  We  wish  chiefly  to  exist  that  we 
may  attach  all  othc/s  of  the  same  profession  to  join 
with  us.  We  would  that  every  man  who  calls  him- 
self a  healer  were  "  stirring  as  the  time "  were 


6  AN  INAUGURAL  ADDRESS. 

"fire  with  fire,"  and  that  his  example,  so  potent  for 
good  or  evil,  should  be  stamped  for  good  in  this 
great  contest. 

And  this,  I  think,  is  indeed  a  point  to  win — even 
beyond  the  winnings  of  science  through  him — 
that,  whenever  a  medical  man  is  fairly  and  fully 
brought  over  from  the  fanatical  superstition  of  this 
Juggernaut  of  civilization,  he  is  at  once  an  exam- 
ple of  examples  to  all  around  him.  The  example 
of  the  clergyman  is,  no  doubt,  of  the  greatest  mo- 
ment ;  but  that,  even,  is  not  like  the  example  set 
by  the  doctor.  The  clergyman  is  open  to  chal- 
lenge from  hour  to  hour,  on  the  doctrine  of  neces- 
sity. He  may  urge  all  that  he  can  on  the  moral 
side  of  the  question ;  he  may  appeal  in  the  most 
fervid  and  eloquent  terms  to  the  sympathies  of  his 
auditors;  but  when  they  approach  him  on  the 
ground  of  necessity,  when  they  say  to  him  that 
they  cannot  exist  without  the  aid  of  alcohol,  when 
they,  as  intelligent  persons,  reason  with  him  on 
scientific  grounds,  then  they  are,  or  may  be,  a 
match,  or  more  than  a  match,  for  him.  In  like 
manner,  the  head  of  a  family  or  of  an  establishment 
may  declare  his  own  views,  set  forth  his  own  ex- 
ample, insist  on  his  command  being  obeyed,  and 
even  enforce  those  commands  ;  but  he  will  have  a 
diminished  influence  when  he  comes  to  close  quar- 
ters in  argument  with  those  who  are  of  the  same 
standing  and  right  as  himself;  while  he  is  liable  to 
be  branded  as  a  mere  opiniated  man,  and  a  tyranni- 
cal man,  by  those  who  obey  because  they  fear,  and 
do  not  believe. 

Moreover,  there  are  times  when  all  who  may  be 


THE  MEDICAL  PROFESSION  AND  ALCOHOL.         ? 

staunch  believers  in  total  abstinence  see  cause  for 
doubt  in  their  own  minds.  Some  one  near  to  them, 
some  one  for  whom  the}7  feel  they  hold  a  responsi- 
bility, declares  that,  in  a  pressing  emergency,  the 
stimulus  of  strong  drink  is  necessary  ;  and  what  is 
*hen  to  be  done?  How  can  the  unlearned  man 
ieal,  even  with  a  drunkard,  under  such  circum- 
stances? He  hesitates  in  the  crisis;  and  gives 
way,  it  may  be,  to  a  good-natured  impulse,  which 
is  as  likely  to  be  ruinous  as  it  is  likely  to  be  useful 
in  its  after-effects. 

But  when  the  medical  man  is  brought  on  the 
field  he  is  in  a  different  position  altogether.  It 
really  is  not  necessary  for  him  to  enter  on  the 
moral  side  of  the  question  at  all.  It  is  hardly 
necessary  for  him  to  appeal  to  any  sympathetic 
argument.  On  that  side  of  the  Temperance  ques- 
tion he  finds  the  battle  won  for  him.  There  is  no 
one  whose  opinion  is  worth  considering  who 
doubts  the  morality  of  perfected  temperance  ;  no 
one  who  hesitates  to  admit  that,  under  the  absolute 
reign  of  temperance,  poverty,  crime,  disease,  would 
lessen,  and  happiness  increase.  The  medical  man 
may,  therefore,  stand  with  effect  purely  on  his  own 
ground.  He  speaks  with  authority  on  the  ques- 
tion of  authority;  he  reads  with  precision  the 
pleadings  for  the  supposed  sustaining  ^agent,  and 
detects  without  hesitation  whether  they  be  real  or 
the  mere  unnecessary  desires  of  a  perverted  and  dis- 
tempered brain.  How  strong  his  position  !  in  pro- 
portion, how  solemn  his  duty!  Other  men  may 
laugh,  he  cannot;  other  men  may  sigh,  he  need 
not.  He  is  there  the  wise  man,  the  arbiter  who  is 


8  AN  INAUGURAL  ADDRESS. 

educated  to  know,  and  who  is  referred  to  as  know 
ing.  Just  a  word  from  him  in  the  right  direction 
how  it  may  save  those  who  are  deceiving  them 
selves,  and,  in  that  self  deception,  deceiving  others 
more  determinately.  If  our  society,  as  a  nucleus, 
could  get  the  whole  of  the  profession  to  proceed 
with  it  so  far,  in  the  exercise  of  the  legitimate  in- 
fluence of  medicine,  and  no  further,  what  an  aid  it 
should  bring  to  the  work  of  the  great  reformation 
that  is  in  progress  I  need  not  tell  to  those  who, 
with  anxious  minds  and  hearts,  are  watching  the 
professional  tone  and  sentiment  for  the  slightest 
breath  of  its  sympathy.  The  act  of  all  medicine 
thrown  into  the  scale  of  perfected  temperance ; 
the  example,  of  which  the  poet  speaks,  thrown 
into  the  scale  of  perfected  temperance  !  It  is  one 
of  those  aspirations  so  much  to  be  hoped  for; 
there  seems  to  be  no  labor  too  great  to  realize  it 
no  honest  prize  too  heavy  to  win  it. 

In  estimating  this  success,  we  are  bound,  more- 
over, to  look  at  it  from  the  negative  as  well  as  the 
positive  point  of  view.  They  say,  in  politics,  that 
one  vote  gained  is  equal  to  two,  because  the  win- 
ning side  wins  what  the  other  side  loses.  In  the  con- 
test on  which  we  are  engaged  to  win,  one  doctor  is 
a  far  greater  winning :  because,  if  the  influence  of 
the  physician  or  surgeon  on  our  side  be  for  good, 
the  influence  of  but  one  against  us  is  far  more  po- 
tent for  evil.  A  doctor  whose  example  turns  the 
scale  ever  so  little  toward  intemperance  ;  a  doctor 
who  treats  this  question  as  a  joke  ;  the  doctor,  more- 
over, who  devotes  his  energies  to  his  calling  of  sav- 
ing life,  and  who,  with  forty  thousand  of  his  fellow 


THE  MEDICAL  PROFESSION  AND  ALCOHOL.         Q 

country  folk  dying  yearly  around  him  from  one 
cause,  and  who,  toward  that  cause,  exhibits  indif- 
ference or  carelessness,  or  apathy — what  preten- 
sions has  he  to  be  a  healer?  Where  is  his  honor, 
to  say  no  word  of  his  feeling  ?  Is  it  honor  to  swear 
fealty  and  not  to  obey  ?  What  if  some  other  great 
cause  of  mortality — say  of  consumption — were  at 
work,  slaying  its  thousands  annually,  and  that 
cause  were  as  well  known  to  him  as  this  cause — 
would  he  toward  that  be  equally  indifferent  ? 
Would  he  hand  it  about,  partake  of  it  himself,  give 
it  to  his  children,  laugh  at  those  who  are  wearying 
to  sweep  it  away,  or  tell  the  afflicted  from  it  that  it 
is  a  necessity  ?  I  am  sure  he  would  scorn  to  do 
any  such  thing. 

As  a  society  we  want  to  bring  these  things  home. 
We  know  they  are  not  ignored  intentionally,  but 
we  feel  that  they  are  ignored  unintentionally  ;  and 
we  hope  that,  if  they  can  be  only  canvassed  fairly 
by  our  brethren,  they  will  soon  be  recognized  as 
truths  deserving  the  choicest  judgment.  We  offer 
no  reflection  on  the  past,  for  we  admit  that  in  the 
past  there  was  a  common  error  pervading  medicine 
in  relation  to  the  physiological  action  of  alcohol, 
a  common  blindness  as  to  the  pathological  evils 
springing  from  it,  and  a  common  misunderstand- 
ing or  ignorance  as  to  the  extent  of  the  evils.  We 
remember  how  in  our  pathological  studies  our 
masters  indifferently  noticed  the  lesions  admittedly 
produced  by  alcohol  as  they  were  observed  in  the 
dead,  while  they  devoted  their  energies  to  define 
with  the  utmost  nicety  the  lesions  which  immedi- 
ately caused  death.  I  recall  one  of  those  devoted 


10  AN  INAUGURAL  ADDRESS. 

teachers,  whose  memory  I  shall  ever  cherish,  who, 
at  nearly  every  research  in  the  dead-house,  would 
end  the  most  careful  description  of  the  conditions 
that  were  the  actual  cause  of  the  fatal  disease  with, 
"  Gentlemen,  there  are  the  usual  known  other  lesions, 
with  which  I  need  not  trouble  you,  because  they 
come  under  one  head — whisky." 

We  admit  all  these  past  mistakes ;  we  know  how 
blind  not  we  alone  but  all  the  world  has  been,  and 
we  come  at  present  purely  to  review  the  past  with 
the  intention  of  improving  the  future ;  of  asking 
if  there  be  not  some  common  ground  on  which  we 
can  all  work,  and,  stirring  with  the  time,  be  indeed 
"  fire  with  fire." 

There  is  much  already  that  is  uncommon  amongst 
us,  as  a  fraternity,  in  respect  to  the  alcohol  question. 
It  is  astonishing  what  we  have  gained  in  a  few  short 
years  in  the  way  of  positive  knowledge  on  the  sub- 
ject. How,  having  got  into  the  natural  lines  of  in- 
quiry, we  have,  even  in  opposition  to  our  prejudices, 
found  one  proof  of  action  confirm  and  support  other 
proofs.  Fifteen  years,  or  at  most  twenty  years  agos 
the  true  physiological  action  of  alcohol  was  a  specu- 
lative discussion  unsupported  by  any  reliable  ex- 
periment, and  therefore  of  the  most  contradictory 
order.  Now  there  is  so  much  evidence  of  its  mode 
of  action  that  dispute  gives  way  to  accepted  fact. 
That  the  ultimate  action  of  alcohol  in  the  animal 
temperature  is  to  reduce  the  temperature  that  al 
cohol  relaxes  organic  muscular  fibre  ;  that  alcohol 
produces  four  destructive  physiological  states  of 
the  body  ;  that  alcohol  reduces  oxidation  ;  that  al- 
cohol interferes  with  natural  dialysis ;  that  alcohol 


THE  MEDICAL  PROFESSION  AND  ALCOHOL.       II 

induces,  even  taken  in  small  quantities,  a  series  of 
morbid  changes  and  diseases  which  were  not 
formerly  attributed  to  it;  that  alcohol  prepares 
the  body  for  destruction  by  external  shocks  and 
depressions  which  are  thus  made  more  fatal;  that 
alcohol  belongs  to  the  same  class  of  chemical  sub- 
stances as  chloroform,  ether,  and  the  anaesthetic 
family;  all  this  is  practically  now  on  the  accepted 
record,  with  the  final  admission,  when  we  are 
speaking  and  thinking  seriously,  that  man,  like  his 
lower  earth-mates,  and  like  his  own  children,  can, 
in  health,  live  and  work  and  play  as  well — not  to 
put  a  finer  point  on  it — without  a  trace  of  alcohol 
as  he  can  with  it. 

"  I  agree,"  writes  a  medical  friend  to  me — a 
friend  who  will  not  go  so  far  as  to  allow  himself  to 
belong  to  a  totally  abstaining  society  even  of  his 
own  brethern — "  I  agree  with  you  that  the  lower 
animals  are  better  without  alcohol.  I  agree  that 
children  and  young  people  are  better  without  al- 
cohol. I  candidly  confess  I  do  not  know  when  a 
young  person  should  begin  to  partake  of  it,  or  at 
what  age  of  life  any  person  who  has  never  tasted 
of  it  should  begin.  I  agree  with  the  ancients,  who 
had  a  law  on  the  subject  that  the  whole  female  sex 
would  be  vastly  better  without  it,  and  that  those 
women  bring  up  the  healthiest  children  who  never 
touch  it.  I  agree  that  a  man  in  a  good  condition 
of  health  is  better  without  it.  I  have  been  to  see 
Carver  shoot,  and  I  am  forced  to  the  conclusion 
that  a  glass  of  wine  would  almost  of  a  certainty 
spoil  all  his  sport ;  nay,  to  please  you,  which  is  al- 
ways a  satisfaction,  I  will  honestly  state  that  I  do 


12  AN  INAUGURAL  ADDRESS. 

not  believe  any  man  who  trusted  in  the  least  to  al- 
cohol could  do  what  Carver  does,  with  such  almost 
superhuman  precision.  I  quite  admit  what  you  re- 
late in  one  of  your  lectures,  that  in  towns  and  com- 
munities of  abstainers,  like  Johnsburg,  health,  com- 
fort, happiness,  and  wealth  are  all  advanced  far  be- 
yond what  they  would  if  the  wine-god  made  his 
entrance  there.  All  these  confessions  I  make,  but 
but  still  I  can  not  join  you." 

My  friend  is  a  representative,  I  believe,  of  nearly 
the  whole  profession  of  Medicine  that  thinks  on  this 
question  seriously.  Strange  it  is  that  with  such  ad 
vance  of  thought  there  should  be  so  much  of  hesi 
tation  as  to  the  logical  course  to  pursue ! 

Another  physician  I  could  name  has  recently 
read  Dr.  Cheyne's  well-known  essay  on  "  Health 
and  Long  Life,"  published  in  1725,  and  thereby  he 
is  sorely  perplexed.  Cheyne  puts  before  this  reader 
some  curious  arguments.  Cheyne  says,  "  That  no 
man  is  afraid  to  forbear  strong  liquors  in  an  acute 
distemper,  what  quantity  soever  he  might  have 
drunk  in  his  health,  and  yet  any  sudden  change  in 
his  humours  would  not  only  be  more  dangerous 
then  than  at  any  other  time,  but  also  would  more 
readily  happen  and  come  to  pass  in  such  critical 
cases.  But,"  he  continues,  "  the  matter  of  fact  is 
false  and  groundless;  for  I  have  known  and  ob- 
served constant  good  effects  from  leaving  off  sud- 
denly large  quantities  of  wine,  and  flesh  meats  too, 
by  those  long  accustomed  to  both,  and  never  ob- 
served any  ill  consequences  from  it  in  any  case 
whatsoever.  Those  whose  constitutions  have  been 
quite  broken  and  running  into  dissolution,  have 


THE   MEDICAL  PROFESSION  AND   ALCOHOL.       13 

lived  longer  and  been  less  pained  in  sickness  by  so 
doing ;  and  those  who  have  had  a  fund  in  nature  to 
last  longer,  have  grown  better,  and  attained  their 
end  by  it." 

This  experience  of  a  very  wise  old  father  of 
medicine  perplexes  my  doubting  modern  friend 
the  more,  because,  to  the  letter,  it  represents  his 
own  practice  and  his  own  experience.  In  all  cases 
of  acute  disease  he  has,  from  custom,  forbidden,  as 
a  first  direction,  wine  and  every  other  stimulant; 
and  in  most  cases  of  diseases  of  all  kinds — liver 
cases,  stomach  cases,  brain  cases — he  has  followed 
the  same  plan.  What  is  more,  he  has  found  it  a 
good  plan,  and,  as  Cheyne  says,  he  never  has  seen 
anything  but  ultimate  good  from  it.  And  so  he 
asks  himself — if  it  be  good  to  cut  this  agent  off  in 
disease  because  the  body  is  diseased  ;  and  if  it  be 
true,  as  all  seem  by  consent  to  declare,  that  in 
health  the  body  does  not  require  the  agent,  when 
does  the  body  require  it,  even  from  the  point  of 
view  of  a  doctor  who,  in  spite  of  it  all  can  not  join 
such  a  society  as  this? 

Another  of  my  brethren,  who  is,  in  like  manner, 
in  doubt,  communicates  his  view  in  equally  striking 
terms.  He  says,  referring  to  one  of  my  lectures: 
"  The  best  service  you,  I  think,  ever  made  was  in 
your  pulling  us  all  up  on  the  question  of  the  degree 
to  which  alcohol  should  be  carried  in  its  adminis- 
tration, and  in  insisting  that  it  should  never  be 
carried  beyond  the  first  stage  or  degree  of  its  ac- 
tion. I  see  "  (he  adds)  "  that  one  of  the  writers  in 
the  Contemporary  Review  repeats  the  same  lesson, 
and  layi  it  down  as  a  rule  that  whenever  alcohol  is 


14  AN  INAUGURAL  ADDRESS. 

taken  to  the  extent  of  doing  more  than  causing 
flushing  of  the  face,  and  a  little  excitation  of  the 
heart,  and  brain,  it  has  been  given  or  taken  in  such 
sufficiency  that  to  go  further  would  be  to  go  into 
danger.  I  entirely  agree  with  this  advice  some- 
times, my  friend,  but  the  difficulty  with  me  lies  in 
carrying  it  out  in  practice.  How  do  I  know  what 
quantities  of  different  wines  or  spirits  to  order  for 
people  of  different  ages  and  constitutions  so  as  to 
produce  just  this  effect  and  no  more  ?  The  drinks 
are  varying  quantities,  the  drinkers  more  varying 
still.  To  carry  out  the  rule,  I  must  first  make  a 
physical  analysis  of  every  drink  I  prescribe,  and 
then  make  a  mental  analysis  of  every  person  I  pre- 
scribe for.  This  is  absurd.  Again,  I  find  that  the 
constitutions  treated  are  like  the  movable  feasts, 
never  twice  alike.  If  I  can  produce  the  precise 
tint  of  flushing  to-day,  in  a  man,  by  six  ounces  of 
sherry,  or  three  ounces  of  the  finest  whisky — the 
Encore  whisky,  for  example,  which  is  said  to  be 
the  purest — I  am  told  in  a  week  or  two  that  the 
quantity  had  lost  its  effect,  and  that  I  must  change 
the  drink  or  give  a  little  more.  Then  I  shake  in 
my  shoes,  lest  by  yielding  I  should  encourage  my 
patient  to  rely  on  the  drink,  to  increase  it  and  be- 
come a  tippler.  So,"  he  concludes,  "  the  question, 
as  I  see  it  is  surrounded  with  difficulties.  The 
theory  is  perfect,  the  practice  an  impossibility.  I 
do  not  want,  certainly,  to  induce  people  to  get  into 
the  second  stage  of  alcoholism  any  more  than  you 
do,  and  would  like  to  prescribe  alcohol  to  cause  a 
given  effect,  as  I  prescribe  chloroform,  chloral, 
mercury,  iodide  of  potassium,  or  quinine;  but  the 


THE  MEDICAL  PROFESSION  AND  ALCOHOL.       15 

thing  is  not  to  be  done  unless,  like  you  and  your 
friends,  I  go  over  to  total  abstinence  and  use  the 
good  gift  as  if  it  were  a  mere  drug;  a  step  which, 
in  my  opinion,  is  just  as  intemperate  as  the  intern- 
Derate  misuse  of  the  gift."  It  is  very  strange  in- 
deed to  hear  these  reasonings,  reasonings  against 
reason  ;  and  yet  I  rather  greet  th'em.  They  are 
signs  of  an  awakening  conviction  that  at  the  bot- 
tom of  the  argument  some  fanatical  sentiment, 
some  ingrained  looseness  of  principle,  is  felt  and 
almost  repented  of.  By  standing  steadily  together, 
though  we  be  but  a  hundred,  we  shall,  I  think,  in 
time  easily  conquer  such  objections  as  these. 

It  is  a  fact,  openly  confessed  by  those  who  are 
not  with  us,  that  we  are  logical,  and  only  too  rigid 
in  our  method.  So  we  are  charged. 

Let  us  not  at  the  same  time,  in  pride  of  logical 
status,  contend  that  those  who  are  not  with  us  have 
no  other  arguments  save  of  the  kind  above  quoted, 
There  are  other  arguments,  and  with  one  or  two  of 
the  best  of  them  I  propose,  in  all  candor,  to  deal 
for  a  few  minutes  of  time. 

There  are  some  who  say  that  if  we  are  logically 
right,  we  are  losing  ground  by  insisting  too  forcibly 
even  on  our  Tightness.  This  is  a  world  of  give  and 
take,  and  the  wisest  rules  will  be  relaxed  by  the  wis« 
est  men.  The  old  author  of  the  work  on  "  Health 
and  Long  Life  "  helps  his  argument  when  he  says, 
"  The  reflection  is  not  more  common  than  just  that 
he  who  lives  physically  must  live  miserably."  The 
truth  is  that  too  great  nicety  and  exactness  about 
every  minute  circumstance  that  may  impair  our 
health  is  such  a  yoke  and  slavery  as  no  man  of  a 


l6  AN   INAUGURAL  ADDRESS. 

free  spirit  would  submit  to.  "  'Tis,"  as  a  poet  ex- 
presses it,  "  to  die  for  fear  of  dying1.  On  the  other 
nand,  to  cut  off  our  days  by  intemperance,  to  live 
miserably  for  the  sake  of  gratifying  a  sweet  tooth, 
is  equally  beneath  the  dignity  of  human  nature." 
Well,  we  all  admit  this  to  be  true,  and  we  would 
relax  our  rigid  rule  about  wine  if  we  felt  that  to 
take  off  wine  were  "  to  die  for  fear  of  dying."  Our 
contention  is,  that  to  leave  it  off  is  not  to  assume  but 
to  cast  away  a  yoke  and  a  slavery  which  no  man 
of  a  free  spirit  would  submit  to.  Our  argument  is 
that  the  wine  drinkers  are  the  yoke  bearers,  we  the 
free  men  ;  and  that  their  indulgence,  in  this  instance, 
is  beneath  the  dignity  of  their  nature,  while  the  cast- 
ing off  the  yoke  is  for  the  happiness,  not  less  than 
the  health,  of  all  mankind  whom  it  affects,  now  and 
to  come. 

There  are  others  who  argue  that  the  world  itself 
is  not  prepared  to  receive  the  truth  from  the  pro- 
fessors of  medicine,  even  if  the  arguments  against 
the  use  of  alcohol  were  all  accepted.  They  say 
that  faith  would  be  lost  in  them  by  their  patients  if 
the  luxury  were  too  hastily  forbidden  ;  they  insist 
that  they  could  not  live  by  practice  expounding 
such  extreme  views,  and  they  assure  us  that  free 
will  is  one  of  the  potent  influences  to  be  conciliated 
even  in  matters  of  life  and  death.  I  admit  at  once 
the  speciousness  of  this  argument.  I  have  written 
an  essay  dealing  on  free  will  in  relation  to  physic. 
I  have  a  keen  appreciation  of  the  power  of  free 
will,  but  I  still  see  one  other  side,  perhaps  two, 
even  to  this  objection.  First,  if  medical  men  were 
united,  free  will  in  the  many  against  them  would 


THE  MEDICAL  PROFESSION  AND  ALCOHOL.       I? 

nave  little  chance ;  secondly,  in  this  matter,  if  I 
mistake  not  the  signs  of  the  times,  the  tide  of  free 
will  is  going  rather  against  them  than  with  them 
in  opposition  to  the  use  of  alcohol.  At  all  events, 
if  popular  free  will  has  not  set  up  in  full  tide  against 
alcohol,  popular  free  doubt  has,  and  that  is  next 
thing  to  it ;  so  on  this  mere  subject  of  expediency 
(and  it  is  nothing  else)  our  society  has  no  need  to 
do  more  than  keep  up  its  colors  and  stand  by  them 
triumphantly. 

The  idea  that  alcohol  is  necessary  to  enable  men 
to  perform  extra  mental  or  physical  work  has  so 
utterly  come  to  grief,  it  is  really  not  necessary  that 
I  should  put  it  forward,  even  as  a  remnant  of 
superstition  against  us  ;  but  it  has  been  suggested, 
leaving  the  present  ground  of  history  altogether, 
giving  up,  in  despair,  all  attempts  to  reply  to  those 
unanswerable  modern  proofs  against  the  old  fal- 
lacy, which  Arctic  explorers,  men  of  great  strength 
and  physical  skill,  incessant  minds,  and  the  most 
laborious  literary  scholars  so  richly  supply  ;  it  has 
been  suggested,  I  repeat,  that,  in  some  inscrutable 
manner,  alcohol  has  been  the  feeding-mother  of 
great  nations,  that  it  has  sustained  racial  tenacities 
and  vitalities,  overcome  mighty  adversaries,  and 
been,  in  short,  both  a  herald  and  a  conqueror  on 
the  side  of  civilization.  For  our  parts  we,  who 
dare  to  doubt  this  conclusion,  want  to  know  on 
what  facts  the  conclusion  is  based.  We  are  will- 
ing to  learn,  but  we  insist  that  those  who  preach 
must  prove.  Who  can  say  what  any  great  and 
mighty  nation  would  have  been  to-day  if  wine  had 
never  been  ?  By  what  evidence  can  the  destinies 


18  AN  INAUGURAL  ADDRESS. 

of  nations  in  favor  of  a  good  destiny  be  traced 
through  wine  or  strong  drink  ?  We  can  see  some 
facts  in  history  in  relation  to  the  effects  of  human 
acts  plainly  enough.  We  can  see,  for  instance,  that 
Constantine  most  probably  destroyed  the  Roman 
empire  by  moving  the  seat  of  government  from  its 
old  basis  to  a  new  city  that  should  be  marked  by 
his  name.  But  where  is  there  any  corresponding 
fact  bearing  on  great  events  and  making  of  nations, 
wine  being  the  factor?  Suppose  we  turn  to  some 
facts,  such  as  they  are,  in  history,  and  they  point 
circumstantially  all  the  other  way.  Nations  the 
mightiest  have  risen  while  they  were  abstaining 
nations ;  have  fallen  when  wine  became  their 
luxury.  Herodotus  gives  us  the  record  of  all- 
powerful  Cyrus  receiving  from  a  small  Ethiopian 
prince  a  bow,  with  this  message ;  "  Tell  Cyrus  that 
when  he  can  bend  this  bow,  which  is  mine,  or  find 
a  Persian  to  do  it,  he  may  come  and  conquer  Ma- 
crobia."  And  the  historian  relates,  with  evident 
satisfaction,  that  these  Macrobians,  who  were  the 
finest  of  men,  so  that  they  stood  a  head  above  the 
Persians,  and  were  a  truly  noble  race,  were  dis- 
tinguished from  the  Persians  in  (hat  they  drank  no 
fluid  stronger  than  milk,  while  the  Persians  reveled 
in  wine.  There  is  yet  another  bit  of  evidence 
against  a  hypothesis  of  alcohol  as  the  nursing- 
mother  of  great  nations.  Through  ail  tribulations, 
through  all  vicissitudes,  through  all  persecutions, 
what  nation  has  maintained  its  vitality  like  the 
Jewish  nation  ?  Has  alcohol  been  to  this  people 
a  nursing-mother?  Baron  Hallcr,  dealing  with 
this  topic  in  the  last  century,  gave  the  secret 


THE  MEDICAL  PROFESSION  AND  ALCOHOL.       19 

of  the  cause   of  this   vitality   all   in   one   word — 
sobrietas. 

There  is  one  other  line  of  objection  taken  against 
our  work,  which  is  the  last  I  have  space  to  refer  to, 
but  which  is  first  in  its  bearing-  on  our  success. 
The  objection  relates  to  the  possibility  of  success- 
fully treating  disease  in  some  forms  of  it  without 
the  aid  of  alcohol.  Opinion  in  the  profession  it- 
self has  greatly  changed  at  various  times  on  this 
subject,  independently  altogether  of  the  subject  of 
temperance.  Before  ever  the  temperance  question 
was  dreamed  of,  medical  men,  and  schools  of  medi- 
cal men  were  in  conflict  from  time  to  time  on  the 
right  and  wrong  in  using  alcohol  in  disease.  The 
Greek  and  Roman  physicians  were  moderate  in 
their  employmeut  of  wine.  They  used,  it  is  true, 
various  kinds  of  wine ;  they  used  salted  wines ; 
they  used  acid  wines  ;  and  in  many  ways  they  used 
wines  purely  as  medicines,  not  confounding  the 
general  with  the  special  use  at  all,  and,  as  a  rule, 
proclaiming  against  their  general  use.  The  Middle 
Age  physicians  were  almost  as  cautious  as  their 
predecessors,  and  although,  after  the  time  of  Albu- 
cases,  in  the  eleventh  century,  they  became  ac- 
quainted with  the  use  of  spirit  of  wine — ardent 
spirit — they  do  not  seem  to  have  employed  the 
ardent  spirit  to  any  extent,  if  at  all,  for  internal  use 
in  the  treatment  of  disease.  They  used  the  spirit 
chiefly  for  tinctures  and  for  dissolving  resins  and 
gums.  After  the  time  of  Stahl  the  doctrine  of  the 
phlogistic  theory,  and  of  the  antiphlogistic  treat- 
ment of  disease  led  to  the  all  but  abandonment  of 
stimulants  in  the  treatment  of  disease,  so  that  dun 


2O  AN  INAUGURAL  ADDRESS. 


last  century  we  had  man}'  illustrious  physi- 
cians who,  on  theory,  let  stimulants  stand  aside; 
while  some  others  joined  in  the  objection  to  the 
use  of  those  agents  from  more  general  and,  I  had 
almost  said,  for  more  generous  sentiments  as  to 
their  danger  to  mankind.  The  illustrious  Haller, 
Boerhave,  Armstrong,  4and  particularly  Erasmus 
Darwin,  were  earnest  in  their  support  of  what  we 
now  call  the  principles  of  temperance,  and  the 
illustrious  representative  of  the  name  of  Darwin  to 
this  day  maintains  the  principle  in  unbroken  line. 
Then,  just  about  one  hundred  years  ago,  there  oc- 
curred for  a  time  a  revulsion  of  feeling,  owing  to 
the  attempted  establishment  in  Edinburgh  of  what 
was  called  the  Brunonian  system  of  medicine, 
founded  by  one  of  the  most  erratic,  generous,  and 
unhappy  men  and  classical  scholars  medicine  ever 
possessed,  John  Benson  Brown,  who  strove  to  in- 
stitute a  system  of  medicine  based  on  the  internal 
administration  of  stimulants  and  narcotics  —  chiefly 
wine,  or  rum,  and  opium.  In  his  physiology  he 
classed  the  stimulant  and  the  narcotic  together  as 
stimuli,  and  held  up  the  practice  of  their  free  ad- 
ministration, as  the  all  but  universal  cure.  Disease 
was  to  him  always  a  relaxation  or  loss  of  vital 
power,  and  the  cure  of  disease  was  by  and  through 
the  conserving  elevating  stimulant.  In  1780,  Brown 
was  for  a  second  time  elected  president  of  the  old 
Medical  Society  of  the  Edinburgh  University,  and 
to  such  fury  did  debate  run  there  that  a  law  was 
passed  for  expelling  students  who  challenged  other 
students  to  mortal  combat.  Cullen,  and  all  the 
leaders  of  the  Edinburgh  School,  opposed  Brown, 


THE  MEDICAL  PROFESSION  AND  ALCOHOL.      21 

who,  in  time,  came  to  London,  where  he  died,  in 
his  fifty-second  year,  of  apoplexy,  after  having 
taken  a  large  dose  of  opium,  to  which  stimulant 
narcotic  he  was  accustomed.  That  he  exerted  an 
influence  in  favor  of  the  stimulating  method  of 
treating  disease  is  without  any  doubt ;  it  suggested 
a  bad  idea  which  ministered  in  its  badness  to  one 
of  the  weaknesses  of  mankind,  and  he  himself,  no 
doubt,  with  all  his  genius,  fell  upon  his  own  sword. 
In  the  early  part  of  the  present  century  the  debate 
as  to  the  value  of  wine  in  disease  continued,  the 
practice  at  least  lapsing  into  a  compromise,  the 
rule  of  which  still  continuing  I  am  myself  able  to 
remember.  The  rule  was  that,  in  acute  disease, 
phlogistic  disease,  the  remedies  to  be  used  were  to 
be  strictly  antiphlogistic  or  depressing,  by  which 
rule  all  stimulants  were  rigorously  excluded  ;  but 
when  the  fury  of  the  phlogistic  attack  had  been 
subdued,  and  the  sick  man,  by  bleeding,  tartar 
emetic,  and  purgatives,  had  been  reduced  to 
death's  door,  then  it  was  the  thing  to  bring  him  up 
again  by  gently  pouring  in  wine  or  other  stimulants 
with  an  improved  dietary.  In  the  profession  of 
medicine  these  were  halcyon  days ;  for  the  people 
they  were  rather  too  systematic  to  be  advantage- 
ous, and  they  met  their  end  by  the  hand  of  Dr. 
Todd,  who,  seeing  the  evil  done  by  the  depressing 
system,  and  not  the  evil  by  the  recruiting  system, 
pushed  his  theories  to  the  extent,  practically,  of 
saying  that  all  disease  was  depression  of  itself,  and 
therefore,  required  to  be  treated  boldly,  and,  from 
the  outset,  with  a  stimulant.  I,  for  my  part,  im- 
bued in  early  life  by  the  lessons  of  a  venerable 


22  AN  INAUGURAL  ADDRESS. 

practitioner  of  medicine  of  the  antiphlogistic 
school,  was  never  led  away  by  the  enthusiasm  of 
Todd,  whom  I  knew  very  well,  and  who  was  al- 
ways most  kindly  interested  in  my  experimental 
work.  But  I  have  always  felt  that  Todd  did  great 
service  in  dispelling  the  old  dogma  of  the  violent 
antiphlogistic  line,  and  only  erred  in  not  stopping 
at  that  point.  His  revulsion  backtoBrunonianism 
was  for  a  time,  no  doubt,  a  serious  disaster ;  but  the 
very  mischiefs  it  wrought  were,  in  the  end,  a  gain 
to  the  cause  of  temperance.  By  exaggerating  the 
tendencies  of  mankind  to  intemperance,  it  struck  a 
note  of  alarm  in  the  hearts  of  conscientious  physi- 
cians, and  made  them  anxious  (as  the  eminent  Dr. 
Fothergill  in  his  latter  days  expressed)  whether,  in 
curing  the  sick  by  wine,  the  physician  might  not 
be  giving  him  the  first  lessons  in  fatal  inebriation. 

Since  the  time  of  Todd  the  tone  of  the  profes- 
sion has  been  one  of  conflict  and  sobering  down, 
in  these  last  days,  to  the  idea  that  stimulants  are 
only  temporary  necessities  in  disease,  and  that  men 
in  good  health  require  none.  The  old  antiphlo- 
gistic mania  -has  departed,  and  its  Brunonian  se- 
quence is  following  the  same  course. 

With  this  improved  mode  of  thought  the  pro- 
fession, no  doubt,  is  lending  itself  to  the  spirit  of 
the  age.  What  we  want  is  that  it  should  do  more. 
Confessedly  in  the  march  of  those  simple  and 
grand  men  who,  in  their  noble  simplicity  and 
greatness  of  nature,  led  the  way  to  the  redemption 
of  the  drunkard  from  drink,  the  profession  has  lost 
the  lead.  We  may  regret  this ;  but,  as  it  is  too 
true,  regrets  were  vain.  It  has  not,  in  this  respect, 


THE  MEDICAL  PROFESSION  AND  ALCOHOL.       23 

been  worse  than  its  learned  friends.  The  Church 
of  all  banners  lost  its  lead ;  the  law  has  not  yet 
moved  in  a  single  form  of  organization  into  the 
ranks  of  the  veterans.  But,  at  last,  the  Church  of 
all  banners  has  taken  up  its  place,  and  we  are  or- 
ganized to  go  with  it.  Our  aim  now  should  be  to 
cast  off  all  things  that  so  easily  beset  us,  and  step 
boldly  into  the  van.  We  are  held  back  mainly  by 
one  conservative  feeling — I  do  not  say  that  in 
derision,  for  medicine,  to  be  sound,  must  always 
be  conservative  ;  we  are  held  back  by  the  idea  that 
alcohol  is  a  necessity,  not  for  health  nor  for  the 
healthy,  but  for  our  work  in  the  treatment  of  dis- 
ease. We  are  none  of  us  in  this  society  out  of 
sympathy  with  this  sentiment,  though  it  be  but  a 
sentiment.  We  all  claim  the  right  to  use  alcohol 
if,  in  our  hearts,  we  believe  we  save  life  by  it,  sa.ve 
suffering,  or  lessen  affliction.  We  merely  contend 
— and  this  is  the  point  we  want  our  fellow-laborers 
to  recognize — that  it  must  be  used  secundum  artem. 

As  a  therapeutical  agent,  I  have  never  excluded 
alcohol  from  my  practice.  But  this  is  what  I  have 
done  for  nine  years  past  :  I  have,  whenever  I 
thought  I  wanted  its  assistance,  prescribed  it  pure- 
ly as  a  chemical  medicinal  substance,  in  its  pure 
form,  in  precise  doses,  in  definite  order  of  time; 
as  I  have  prescribed  amyl  nitrite,  or  chloroform,  or 
ether,  so  I  have  prescribed  alcohol. 

By  this  method  I  have  an  absolute  experience  of 
the  clinical  use  of  alcohol,  which,  I  think  I  may 
safely  say,  does  not  belong  to  many  other  prescrib- 
ing physicians.  There  are  thousands  of  physicians 
who,  in  the  same  time,  have  probably  prescribed 


24  AN  INAUGURAL  ADDRESS. 

alcoholic  fluids  a  hundred  times  to  my  single  time; 
but  if  they  were  to  be  asked  the  precise  doses  they 
have  ordered,  the  actual  purity  of  the  substances 
they  have  ordered,  they  would  be  -quite  unable,  in 
most  cases,  to  answer  at  all.  So  many  ounces  of 
wine,  so  many  ounces  of  brandy  or  whisky,  really 
means  nothing  at  all  that  is  reliable.  Therefore  an 
absolute  experience  of  alcohol,  and  that  only,  is  a 
novelty.  When  I  order  alcohol,  I  prescribe  so 
much  of  it  as  I  think  or  know  will  produce  the  de- 
sired effect,  directing  the  specific  gravity  of  the 
fluid  to  be  '830,  which  is  not  absolute  alcohol,  ab- 
solute alcohol  being  795,  but  which  is  sufficiently 
near  to  be  reliable.  This  is  the  alcohol  commonly 
retailed  as  absolute  alcohol,  and  is  made  without 
the  expense  and  trouble  of  removing  the  last  por- 
tion of  water. 

Used  medicinally  in  this  manner,  the  therapeuti- 
cal action  of  alcohol  may  be  soon  reduced  to  a 
positive  method.  There  is  no  ambiguity  of  ac- 
tion about  it  at  all.  It  is  as  easily  manageable  as 
chloroform,  and  is  as  definite  in  result  as  mercury, 
or  iodide  of  potassium.  The  differences  of  state- 
ments as  to  its  influence  in  disease  are,  in  fact,  one 
and  all  due  to  the  unscientific  and  utterly  fallacious 
mode  of  ordering  it  as  wine,  or  spirit,  or  beer,  with- 
out regard  to  quantity,  quality,  or  admixture ;  for 
when  it  is  ordered  in  that  way  the  percentage  of 
alcohol  is  unknown,  the  fact  that  there  is  no  other 
alcohol  save  the  ethylic  is  unproven,  and  the  other 
disturbing  agents  that  may  be  present,  in  the  way 
of  ethers  and  acids,  are  not  calculated  for,  though 
they  may  be  very  important 


THE  MEDICAL  PROFESSION  AND  ALCOHOL.      25 

From  the  simple  method  and  scientific  course 
pursued,  I  may  say  that  when  alcohol  is  prescribed 
for  the  sick  in  a  positive  mode  in  relation  to  quanti- 
ty, quality,  and  purity,  so  that  nothing  but  the  ac- 
tion of  ethylic  alcohol  is  brought  under  observation 
after  the  administration,  the  phenomena  which  fol- 
low are  singularly  corroborative  of  the  physiologi- 
cal facts  which  have  of  late  years  been  made  known 
as  to  its  action  on  healthy  bodies.  It  is  probable 
indeed  that  the  influence  of  no  other  medicine  in 
the  pharmacopoeia  can  be  more  correctly  read  by 
the  light  of  physiological  learning  than  alcohol. 
The  chief  difficulty  that  attends  the  administration 
for  securing  positive  results  lies  in  the  circumstance 
that  so  many  persons  have  accustomed  themselves 
to  the  use  of  it  in  varying  quantities,  there  is  no 
standard  dose  applicable  to  the  community  at  large 
for  ensuring  the  precise  degree  of  action  that  may 
be  desired.  We  are  often  in  the  same  condition  in 
respect  to  this  drug  as  we  are  in  respect  to  opium, 
when  on  rare  occasions  we  have  to  treat  a  person 
who  is  addicted  to  the  daily  use  of  opium. 

When,  however,  we  have  under  treatment  those 
who  are  not  accustomed  to  alcohol,  the  results  are 
regular  and  decisive.  Then  the  dose  of  half  a  fluid 
ounce,  by  measure,  of  '830  ethylic  alcohol  adminis- 
tered to  an  adult  is,  as  a  rule,  sufficient  to  produce 
a  brief  temporary  action.  The  action  commences 
within  ten  minutes  after  the  fluid  is  taken,  and  the 
first  sign  of  its  action  is  detectable  in  the  circulation. 
The  action  of  the  heart  is  quickened,  the  rate  of 
quickening  being  distinct  even  when  the  pulsation 
is  previously  quickened  from  disea.se.  The  rate  of 


26  AN  INAUGURAL  ADDRESS. 

increase  runs,  as  a  rule,  from  five  to  seven  pulsa- 
tions per  minute,  and  even  in  cases  of  permanently 
slow  pulse  the  rule  is  maintained,  as  I  found  in  the 
instance  of  a  member  of  my  own  profession,  who 
has  a  permanently  slow  pulse  of  thirty-five.  With 
this  rise  in  the  pulse  there  follows  the  temporary 
elevation  of  surface  warmth,  and  all  the  other  signs 
and  subsequent  effects  of  that  ephemeral  fever  from 
alcohol  with  which  we  are  so  well  conversant;  a 
fever  which,  in  some  respects,  resembles  a  mild 
ague,  and  in  other  respects  a  hectic.  By  the  use 
of  alcohol  in  this  pure  form  we  learn  with  much 
accuracy  its  effects  when  it  is  administered  in  miner 
doses  so  as  not  to  produce  any  objective  effect; 
but  it  is  presumed  to  conserve  metamorphoses  of 
tissue,  or  quicken  local  circulations.  On  the  whole 
I  am  not  inclined  to  deny  the  use  of  alcohol  in  this 
strictly  scientific  sense.  I  could  do  very  well  with- 
out it,  since  there  are  other  substances  which  take 
its  place  that  are  less  persistent  in  their  effects,  and 
are  not  so  prone  to  create  a  constitutional  appetite 
for  themselves;  but  as  a  remedial  agent  of  a  third 
or  fourth  class  value  it  deserves  to  be  retained  in 
the  arcanum  of  physic. 

I  think  I  have  shown  now,  in  all  that  is  present 
and  practical,  that  there  is  a  reason  for  the  exist- 
ence of  this  nucleus  of  abstaining  medical  men ; 
that  the  nucleus  has  its  work  laid  out;  and  that 
the  affection  and  adhesion  of  other  members  ol 
the  same  profession,  of  which  it  forms  so  small  a 
part,  is  for  all  sakes  a  realization  to  be  hoped  for 
and  expected. 

The  illustrious  Descartes,  in  one  of  his  prophetic 


THE   MEDICAL  PROFESSION  AND  ALCOHOL.      2"J 

moods,  ventured  to  predict  that  all  the  great  move- 
ments of  the  world  of  thought,  in  physics,  in  morals, 
and  even  in  government,  would  at  some  future  day 
be  evolved  out  of  the  medical  sciences.  It  was 
natural  for  the  founder  of  the  Cartesian  philosophy 
to  predict  in  this  wise.  With  him  there  were  but  two 
principles  in  nature — "  I  think,  therefore,  I  am  " — 
"and  nothing  exists  but  substances."  The  combi- 
nation made  up  man,  a  spiritually  materialized  or- 
ganism, who  must,  with  his  material  surroundings, 
come,  in  course  of  time,  more  and  more  particu- 
larly under  the  cognizance  of  those  who  study  the 
attributes  and  structure  of  man,  and  the  effects  of 
the  external  forces  and  materialities  upon  his  exist- 
ence, habits,  and  character.  To  Descartes  the  so- 
cial status  of  the  Physician  strengthened  this  con- 
ception. In  his  time  there  were  no  general  rival- 
ries of  thought  and  learning  to  oppose  the  particu- 
lar thought  and  learnifig  of  the  strictly  professional 
man.  Between  the  philosophical  scholars,  and  the 
commonalty  there  was  a  gulf  which  seemed  to  be 
impassable.  The  few  learned  were  so  distinct  they 
held  the  whole  province  of  knowledge,  and  when 
they  spoke  others  did  but  wonder  and  listen  ;  listen 
to  Ren6  Cartes  himself  as  to  an  oracle.  Why  should 
they  change  ? 

Had  Descartes  lived  to  this  hour  he  would  have 
seen  that  the  gulf  between  the  learned  and  the  un- 
learned was  anything  but  impassable,  that  it  might 
De  broad  b':t  was  not  too  deep  to  be  crossed  suc- 
cessfully, and  that  the  ultimate  fate  of  the  world 
was  probably  for  it  to  cross  en  masse  into  the  do- 
main of  learning,  to  settle  there  and  make  the  do* 


28  AN  INAUGURAL  ADDRESS. 

main  as  common  property  as  ever  was  claimed  by 
an  overwhelming  force  that  knew  how  to  march 
and  to  conquer. 

Perhaps,  therefore,  in  this  day  the  great  meta- 
physicist  might  not  be  inclined  to  take  the  same 
sanguine  view  as  that  which  he  expressed  so  con- 
vincingly in  his  own  day.  He  would  see,  with 
deep  satisfaction,  his  theory  of  the  extension  of 
matter  into  infinitude  brought,  by  such  men  as 
William  Crookes,  into  experimental  demonstra- 
tion ;  but  he  would  not  see  any  particular  sect  of 
men  belonging  to  medicine  taking  under  their  su- 
pervision the  whole  physical,  metaphysical,  and 
moral  administration  of  the  world.  So  far  from 
seeing  this,  he  would  be  a  witness  to  a  decline 
from  any  such  commanding  position.  He  would 
see  all  the  learned  professions  bordering  on  a  state 
of  discontinuity.  He  would  observe  that  men  and 
women  of  all  classes  were  beginning  to  know  and 
think  for  themselves  without  the  aid  of  any  profes- 
sional adviser,  or,  when  calling  in  the  aid  of  such 
adviser  in  great  emergencies,  being  extremely  in- 
quisitive at  the  moment  and  extremely  critical 
afterwards  when  the  fruits  of  the  advice,  good, 
bad,  or  indifferent,  were  declared.  More  remark- 
able still,  he  would  see  in  our  modern  civilized 
circles  an  universal  educational  life  growing  tip 
amongst  the  young  which,  like  hard}7  vegetation 
on  good  old  so  1,  was  threatening  to  uproot  every- 
thing before  it  and  to  establish  a  new  face  and 
destiny. 

Stranger  still  would  it  be  to  the  father  of  the 
Cartesian  philosophy  that  in  no  point  were  his  cal- 


THE  MEDICAL  PROFESSION  AND  ALCOHOL.       2g 

dilations  so  far  out  as  on  the  point  of  the  progress 
into  power  of  his  favored  professional  community. 
He  would  see  the  grand  interests  of  that  profession 
poorly  recognized  ;  he  would  fail  to  discern  that 
classical  scholarship  which  was  so  distinctive  a 
feature  in  the  medical  celebrities  he  knew  ;  he 
would  discover  no  exercise  of  political  influence 
beyond  what  was  held  by  the  community  in  gen- 
eral ;  he  would  be  pained  to  hear  amongst  the  half- 
educated  ruling  classes  not  unfrequent  remarks  of 
disparagement  as  to  the  social  and  scientific  dis- 
tinction of  his  favored  brotherhood  ;  he  would  wit- 
ness with  sadness  and  amazement  the  fact  that,  in 
deference  to  a  whimsical  folly  of  the  age,  some  of 
the  best  men  amongst  the  brotherhood  were  fritter- 
ing away  their  lives  at  some  contemptible  little  sec- 
tion of  their  noble  craft,  to  which  section  they  were 
mercilessly,  piteously  specialised  :  and,  worst  of 
all,  he  would  gather  that  by  this  process  of  divid- 
ing, dividing,  dividing,  the  whole  body  was,  by 
wide-spreading,  being  brought  into  danger  of  utter 
disintegration. 

And  yet,  gentlemen,  there  was  after  all  nothing 
but  what  was  natural  and  probable  in  the  prophecy 
of  Descartes.  It  is  perfectly  true  that  we,  as  a 
brotherhood,  are  or  ought  to  be  engaged  in  studies 
and  pursuits  so  sublime  and  so  intimately  connected 
with  every  incident  of  this  mortal  life,  that  we 
should  be  in  every  sense  a  first  power  amongst 
mankind.  So  closely  connected  are  our  pursuits 
with  the  heart  and  soul  of  all  that  lives  that  if  we 
had  no  ambitions,  no  passions,  no  desires,  we  ought 
by  our  very  work  to  stand  in  the  first  ranks  of  man- 


3O  AN  INAUGURAL  ADDRESS. 

kind.  Respect,  profound  and  persistent,  should  be 
paid  to  our  work  if  not  to  our  workmen ;  and  yet 
our  best  work  is,  as  a  rule,  known  only  to  ourselves. 

At  last,  in  this  social  position  of  our  body  politic 
a»d  scientific, — a  position  not  heartily  accredited 
by  men  of  pure  science ;  not  over  warmly  admitted 
by  the  republic  of  letters ;  scarcely  thought  of  by 
the  artistic  world,  although  our  artistic  working  is 
of  the  most  refined  order;  sometimes  frowned  at 
by  the  Church ;  resorted  to  by  the  masses  as  a  ne- 
cessity they  would  gladly  avoid  ;  and  all  the  while 
keeping  within  our  own  sphere  as  if  we  had  no 
connection  with  the  outer  world  except  by  the 
practical  tie  of  professional  interest, — in  this  po- 
sition, I  repeat,  we  come  at  last  face  to  face  with 
one  of  the  great  revolutionary  incidents  in  the  pre- 
sent grand — surpassingly  grand  beyond  anything  of 
which  we  have  any  record — revolutionary  epochs 
of  human  history  :  I  mean  the  supreme  effort  which 
is  now  being  made,  with  every  prospect  and  cer- 
tainty of  ultimate  success,  to  rid  the  world  of  the 
slavery  of  superstition,  folly,  sin,  sorrow,  madness, 
and  death  that  has  forages  past  been  imposed  upon 
the  world  by  the  use  of  alcoholic  drinks. 

Never  in  our  course  as  a  profession  have  we 
been  brought  face  to  face  with  the  public  in  a  more 
serious  or  solemn  manner.  We  are  brought  face 
to  face  with  the  public  on  a  question  which  it  will 
have  solved  though  it  solve  it  independently  of  us 
altogether,  and  that  a  question  which  is  singularly, 
and  in  the  name  of  health,  emphatically  our  own. 
The  question  is  not  whether  man  can  live  without 
the  use  of  alcholic  drinks,  but  whether  we  can,  by 


THE  MEDICAL  PROFESSION  AND  ALCOHOL.      31 

our  voice  and  authority,  justify  the  thoughtful  sec- 
tion of  the  public  in  its  attempt  to  prove  that  men 
can  not  only  live  without  such  aid,  as  the  lower 
creation  lives,  but  can  live  as  healthily  ;  whether 
men  who  have  been  accustomed  to  take  stimulants 
until  they  have  acquired  a  lower  organization  than 
was  meant  for  them,  can  give  up  the  habit  with 
safety  as  well  as  advantage  ;  and,  lastly,  if  it  ever 
be  necessary  that  alcohol  or  some  similar  agent  be 
positively  called  for  in  emergency,  whether  we,  as 
men  specially  fitted  for  the  task,  can  not  come  to 
the  assistance  of  the  public,  and  by  our  skill  meet 
their  difficulty  without  encouraging  a  habit  which 
is  fraught  with  danger  to  the  individual,  and  with 
endless  suffering  to  the  nation — to  the  world. 

We  who  constitute  this  society  are  all  of  us  men 
who,  in  the  active  exercise  of  professional  duty, 
are  living  witnesses  of  the  truth  of  the  proposition 
that  men  engaged  as  we  are  fulfil  our  allotted  tasks 
without  recourse  to  alcohol  as  a  sustainer  or  a  part 
of  our  life's  feast.  We  join  hands  in  this  matter 
with  the  rest  of  the  abstaining  community,  and  we 
join  with  it  in  the  belief  that  we  perform  our  work 
more  steadily,  more  cheerfully,  more  easily,  more 
healthfully,  than  we  did  when  we  indulged  in  the 
factitious  delusion  and  practice  of  seeking  sustain- 
ment  from  alcohol.  We  extend  from  this  experi- 
ence our  lines  of  observation  and  inference.  We 
argue  that,  as  we  are  no  more  and  no  less  mortal 
than  our  even  Christian,  what  we  can  do  can  be 
done  also  by  any  member  of  our  profession.  We, 
therefore,  have  a  logical  basis  of  argument,  and 
san  move  heart  and  soul  with  those  who  strive  to 


32  AN   INAUGURAL  ADDAESS. 

redeem  the  world  from  one  of  its  worst  slaveries 
But,  then,  we  are  a  mere  isolation.  Out  of  twenty 
thousand  in  the  ranks  of  medicine  we  number  a 
two-hundredth  part,  and  the  rest,  what  does  it  say,, 
that  voice  of  two  hundred  to  one? 

I  will  not  indicate,  at  this  moment,  what  the  re- 
presentatives of  that  great  voice  should  say.  I  will 
only  urge  that  the  mode  in  inspiring  reliance  on 
iheir  utterings  by  the  public  mind  and  conscience 
—is,  that,  they  should  speak  definitely,  aye  or  no, 
o  definite  questions.  When  they  are  asked  if 
alcoholic  drinks  are  a  necessity  for  healthy  life, 
they  ought  to  be  able  to  say,  with  the  proof  on 
their  lips,  aye  or  no.  When  asked  if  the  con- 
firmed alcoholic,  of  any  age,  can  give  up  his 
stimulant  without  injury,  they  ought  to  be  able 
to  say  as  clearly,  aye  or  no.  When  asked  by 
an  earnest  man  or  woman,  who  wishes  to  re- 
claim either  a  single  individual  or  a  community, 
whether  they  can  help  in  the  emergency  by  meet- 
ing an  assumed  necessity,  they  ought  to  be  able  to 
say  aye  or  no,  with  a  precision  of  statement  worthy 
of  their  learning  and  their  vocation.  We  stand,  all 
of  us,  on  our  mettle  when  these  questions  come 
forward  to  be  answered.  The  public,  that  regards 
so  little  our  politics,  that  cares  so  much  less  for  our 
routine  work,  that  ignores  our  finest  triumphs  of 
skill  with  so  much  stolidity,  tests  us  here.  These 
(say  they)  are  the  men  who,  of  all  others,  ought  to 
say  definitely  aye  or  no.  Here  is  a  grent  public 
question,  essentially  their  own.  Let  us  test  them 
and  try  them.  If  they  arc  not  able  to  answer 
questions  so  simple  and  straightforward  more  dis- 


THE  MEDICAL  PROFESSION  AND  ALCOHOL.      33 

tinctly  than  we  are,  what  good  are  they  ?  As  to 
that  two-hundredth  part,  they  may  be  mere  en- 
thusiasts, and  their  saying  may  be  prompted  by 
their  sympathies  rather  than  by  their  reason  ;  we 
want  to  know  what  the  majority  can  satisfactorily 
tell  us. 

I  do  not  overstate  the  matter  in  the  least  in  these 
remarks.  The  profession  of  medicine  has  lost  suf- 
ficient already  by  its  attitude  toward  this  vital, 
urgent  question.  Remaining  as  it  does  a  few  years 
longer,  it  will  lose  beyond  recall  the  confidence  it 
still  retains  ;  for  time  will  yield  the  answer  it  ought 
to  give  without  reference  to  its  final  judgment,  if 
that  judgment  be  long  delayed. 

With  all  respect,  therefore,  but  all  earnestness, 
we  say  to  our  brethren  everywhere — 

"  Be  stirring  as  the  time,  be  fire  with  fire." 

nor  :  o  we  fear  to  add  the  corollary  of  the  poet: 

"  So  shall  inferior  eyes, 

Which  gather  their  behaviors  from  the  great, 
Grow  great  by  your  example." 


THE 


An  Address  delivered  at  the  Anniversary  of  the  London  Aitx- 
iliary  of  the  United  Kingdom  Alliance. 


MR.  PRESIDENT,  LADIES,  AND  GENTLEMEN:— 
Some  friend  of  mine,  whom  I  have  known  for  many 
years  as  an  acquaintance  rather  than  as  an  intimate 
friend,  met  me  ten  days  ago  on  the  Metropolitan 
Railway,  and  said,  "  So  you  are  going  to  be  with 
that  Canon  of  Westminster  again  on  the  platform. 
If  you  go  about  with  canons  and  prelates  much 
longer  we  shall  expect  to  see  you  in  the  Church, 
and  looking  out  for  a  bishopric."  "  Well,"  I  said, 
"if  it  had  been  my  fate  to  be  in  the  Church  I  have 
no  doubt  I  should  have  lived  or  tried  to  have  lived 
so  worthily  that  I  might  even  have  looked  out  for 
an  archbishopric,  though  I  never  got  more  than  a 
curacy;  but  I  don't  remember  to  what  you  refer" 
— for  this  meeting  had  passed  for  a  moment  from 
my  memory.  "  Why,  you  are  going  to  the  Me- 
morial Hall — you  two  Liberals,  as  I  suppose  you 
call  vourselves — to  plead  against  the  liberty  of  the 
subject."  "  I  beg  your  pardon,"  I  said,  "  we  are 
not  going  to  do  anything  of  the  kind  ;  we  are  going 
to  plead  for  the  liberty  of  the  abject."  "That's 
another  way  of  putting  the  question,"  said  he.  "  I 


4  THE  LIBERTY  OF  THE  ABJECT. 

never  thought  of  that."  A  few  days  afterward  I 
met  him  again,  and  he  said,  "-Do  you  know  that 
idea  of '  the  liberty  of  the  abject '  sticks  to  me  ?  It 
is  uncommonly  like  saying 'the  devil  in  solution, 
and  my  boys  have  got  hold  of  it,  and  if  you  make 
that  your  text  I  am  not  quite  sure  that  I  sha'n't  go 
to  hear  you  speak."  He  may  be  here.  It  has  oc- 
curred to  me  that,  as  we  are  going  to  hear  about 
local  option  in  Canada  from  Mr.  Manning,  I  had 
better  let  that  rest  with  him,  whilst  I  use  this  acci- 
dental text  in  order  to  fortify  your  minds  when 
persons  rise  up  and  talk  to  you  upon  the  question 
of  the  liberty  of  the  subject.  Now  we  don't  in  any 
way  interfere  with  the  liberty  of  the  subject  in  our 
proposed  measures  when  we  think  of  liberty  in  its 
true  sense.  That  distinguished  and  thoughtful 
philosopher,  Mr.  Tony  Weller,  speaking  to  his  son 
on  a  very  important  subject,  said,  "  There  are  vheels 
vithin  vheels,  Samivel."  That  is  true ;  and  there 
are  liberties  within  liberties;  and  that  which  we 
contend  for  in  respect  to  liberty  is  this,  that  we  are 
preaching  against  a  liberty  which  is  created  and  for 
a  liberty  which  is  eternal.  There  is  the  broad  dis- 
tinction. There  is  an  old  story  re-told  by  my  friend 
Professor  Polli,  of  Milan,  told  before,  but  told  again 
by  him,  in  reference  to  a  physiological  question, 
that  in  ancient  times  there  lived  an  old  man  called 
the  "  Old  Man  of  the  Mountain,"  and  that  old  man, 
by  some  strange  spell  which  he  exercised  over  his 
followers,  could  send  them  here  and  there  to  do 
whatever  he  liked,  making  them  brigands  to-day, 
murderers  to-morrow — anything  that  he  wished. 
Well,  those  men  would  go  about,  I  dare  say,  de- 


THE   LIBERTY   OF  THE   ABJECT.  $ 

claring  that  they  were  at  liberty ;  and,  perhaps,  if 
you  had  gone  and  endeavored  to  stop  them  in  their 
career  they  would  have  said,  "  You  are  interfering 
with  the  liberty  of  the  subject."  We  say,  "  No,  not 
at  all !  because  you  yourselves  are  not  free.  You 
are  under  an  influence  which  leads  you  to  do  deeds 
which  are  not  for  the  benefit  of  mankind  or  your- 
selves, which  are  dead  against  human  liberty,  and 
for  which  you  can  scarcely  be  called  responsible." 
That  is  the  position  in  which  men  stand  with  regard 
to  this  "Old  Man  of  the  Mountain,"  alcohol.  They 
stand  obeying  orders  to  do  that  which  is  not  liberty, 
and  then  they  become  the  abject,  and  we  stand  to 
reclaim  the  abject.  We  enter  our  prisons.  Some 
of  the  abject  are  there  picking  oakum  ;  others  walk- 
ing the  endless  wheel ;  others  tied  to  the  pillar  to 
be  whipped  ;  some  thinking  of  their  last  moments 
and  the  approach  of  the  executioner.  We  ask, 
"  What  brought  these  men  here?"  and  the  reply, 
by  the  mouths  of  our  judges  themselves,  is,  in  nine- 
tenths  of  the  cases,  "that  glorious  liberty  which 
England  giv.es  to  her  children  to  allow  them  to 
debase  themselves  till  they  come  to  these  condi- 
tions." Is  that  the  liberty  of  the  subject?  We  say 
— that  is  the  slavery  of  the  abject.  We  go  amongst 
the  sick,  and  find  there,  amongst  those  who  are 
passing  through  various  stages  of  pain  and  dis 
ease,  no  less  than  40,000  a  year  going  in  a  certain 
way  to  death.  We  ask,  "  Why  are  these  dying  and 
suffering  in  this  manner?"  and  the  answer,  faith 
fully  spoken,  is,  "  Because  of  the  liberty  which  this 
country  gives  to  produce  all  this  disease  and 
misery.''  That  is  the  liberty  of  the  subject  truly, 


6  THE   LIBERTY   OF   THE   ABJECT. 

but  it  is  the  misery  of  the  abject!  And  when  we 
come  to  particular  cases  \ve  find,  as  the  chairman 
has  said,  that  those  who  are  nearest  to  the  debasing 
influence  of  alcohol  are  those  that  are  most  afflicted. 
If  you  could  in  imagination  see  the  Angel  of  Death 
sweeping  over  a  large  town  till,  as  Mr.  Bright  once 
said,  you  can  almost  hear  the  motion  of  his  wings 
and  watch  him  ready  to  pounce  upon  those  victims 
nearest  to  his  grasp,  where  would  you  see  that 
Angel  of  Death  going  in  the  largest  proportion? 
You  would  see  him  going  138  times  to  the  houses 
of  those  who  sell  strong  drinks  while  he  went  to  100 
houses  where  these  drinks  were  not  sold.  Can 
there  be  a  more  awful  problem  put  before  us  than 
this — the  rescue  of  these  abject  from  their  slavery? 
But  we  go  a  step  further.  We  look  at  this  liberty 
in  relation  to  what  may  be  called  the  pleasure  of 
the  thing — the  "  merry  moments  "  which  the  Old 
Man  of  the  Mountain  allows  to  his  followers.  You 
walk  into  the  dens  of  East  London  and  look  there 
at  what  is  called  "pleasure" — dancing-saloons 
lighted  up  with  the  most  gaudy  frippery,  men  sit- 
ting there,  and  dejected  and  enslaved  women  danc- 
ing up  the  center  and  making  a  scene,  the  whole 
by  and  by  going  in  one  giddy  whirl — in  one  wild, 
furious  circle;  and  then  the  break-up  and  the  lead- 
ing away  of  those  wretched  women  to  the  worst  of 
all  slaveries  the  mind  can  conceive.  Call  that  the 
pleasure  of  the  Old  Man  of  the  Mountain!  Call 
that  the  liberty  of  the  subject !  Yes,  it  is  the  liberty 
the  nation  gives  to  its  subjects  to  indulge  in  that 
which  produces  such  unspeakable  misery.  If  you 
were  to  follow  these  people  to  their  homes  (as  I 


THE   LIBERTY   OF  THE   ABJECT.  7 

have  done  recently),  and  see  the  children  sitting 
half-dying  on  the  door-steps,  the  women  waiting 
for  the  infuriated  man  called  "  husband "  and 
"father,"  then  yon  would  indeed  think  that  the 
liberty  of  the  subject  was  something  that  deserved 
to  be  reconsidered  in  connection  with  the  liberty  ot 
the  abject.  Ladies  and  gentlemen,  we  don't  in  our 
own  time  think  of  this  time  as  we  do  of  past  times. 
We  look  back  to  past  times  and  say,  "  How  horrible 
things  were  then !  "  There  is  a  great  scholar  and 
antiquarian  friend  of  mine  who  has  spent  many 
thousands  of  pounds  in  collecting  the  history  of 
London  and  pictures 'relating  thereto,  and  there  are 
no  more  remarkable  pieces  of  knowledge  than  those 
•which  can  be  obtained  in  looking  over  his  plates  of 
London — exhibitions  of  Bartholomew  Fair,  Tyburn, 
the  Savoy,  the  Prisons,  and  the  like.  One  night, 
when  I  was  looking  through  that  collection,  I  was 
horrified  by  one  picture.  I,  a  man  accustomed  to 
see  death  in  all  forms,  accustomed  to  see  the  dead, 
turned  pale  at  one  picture.  It  related  to  a  debtors' 
prison.  There  was  a  punishment  which  the  recal- 
citrant debtors  within  100  years  of  this  time  some- 
times illegally  underwent  •  they  were  put  into  a 
cell  in  which  a  dead  body  was  allowed  to  lie,  and 
when  it  could  be  retained  there  no  longer  another 
was  put  in  its  place !  We  exclaim  in  horror,  "  Could 
such  a  thing  be  100  years  ago?"  It  could,  and  if 
in  TOO  years  hence  some  man  should  stand  as  I 
stand  now,  and  only  refer  back  any  week  to  the 
admirably  conducted  Alliance  News,  and  take  up 
one  column,  "Fruits  of  the  Traffic,"  and  commence 
to  rea,d  of  the  horrible  crimes  committed  in  the 


8  THE  LIBERTY  OF  THE  ABJECT. 

name  of  this  demon  of  drink  in  one  day,  he  and  his 
audience  would  be  not  less  horrified  by  the  record 
there  given  of  our  time  than  we  are  by  the  record 
of  the  debtors'  prison  100  years  ago.  We  turn  to 
others  of  the  abject.  We  turn  to  a  better  class  per- 
chance of  men — to  men  who,  in  their  despair, 
brought  down  to  the  lowest  depths  of  mental 
shame  and  degradation,  are  contemplating  the  loss 
of  their  own  lives — nay,  the  taking  of  them  by  their 
own  act — under  the  influence  of  this  Old  Man  of  the 
Mountain.  It  is  not  many  months  since  a  respect- 
able-looking man  called  at  my  house  in  the  greatest 
state  of  distress  through  drink,  and  he  said,  "  You 
stand  between  me  and  Regent's  Park  Canal.  I  am 
on  my  way  to  it  unless  you  can  reason  me  out  of 
the  step  I  am  going  to  take."  I  succeeded  that 
time.  For  two  months  he  became  an  abstainer  and 
a  different  man  altogether;  but  one  day,  the  influ- 
ence of  the  Old  Man  still  pursuing  him,  some 
friends  met  him,  dared  him  -to  taste  the  drink,  and 
the  result  was,  that  two  weeks  afterward  a  coroner's 
inquest  revealed  that  this  man  had  brought  him- 
self to  the  very  fate  from  which  I  had  once  rescued 
him.  What  was  the  cause  of  that?  The  liberty  of 
the  subject — the  liberty  which  this  country  gives 
to  these  men  so  to  indulge  that  they  shall  use  the 
liberty  to  their  own  self-destruction.  We  pass  to 
the  mad-house,  and  what  is  the  story  told  us  there  ? 
The  story  is  that  40  per  cent,  of  those  who  are  led 
into  the  hopeless  chains  of  confinement  in  the  luna- 
tic asylum  come  in  from  one  cause — this  permission, 
this  liberty  of  the  subject  to  indulge  unchecked  in 
that  which  produces  the  misery  of  the  abject.  And 


THE   LIBERTY   OF   THE   ABJECT.  9 

so  with  regard  to  the  work-house.  When  we  move 
into  that  we  find  that  in  a  large  per  ;entage  of  cases 
just  the  same  tale  is  told  of  the  liberty  of  the  sub- 
ject becoming  in  this  respect  the  bondage  of  the 
abject.  We  must  work  steadily  on  toward  the  one 
great  end  of  declaring  the  liberty  of  the  abject.  The 
learned  Canon  [Canon  Farrar,  who  was  presiding] 
in  the  pulpit  and  on  the  platform  and  in  the  study 
must  and  will  continue  his  work.  The  others  who 
have  so  ably  spoken  must  and  will  continue  their 
work.  You  must  continue  yours.  I  must  continue 
my  work — and  if  you  give  me  your  support  I  will 
try  and  extend  it,  for  I  will  stand  by  the  side  of  Mr. 
Whitworth  in  Parliament,  if  I  can,  and  confirm  by 
my  vote  that  which  I  have  said  in  my  speech.  We 
have  a  great  many  prejudices  to  overcome,  and  I 
will  tell  you  a  bit  of  history,  which  shows  how 
prejudices  ought  to  be  met  when  they  are  brought 
forward  even  in  high  quarters.  In  June,  1752,  the 
illustrious  Franklin  sent  up  a  kite,  caught  the 
lightning  from  the  clouds,  and  showed  that  light- 
ning and  electricity  were  the  same;  and  thereupon 
he  suggested  those  splendid  lightning-conductors 
which  you  see  on  the  tops  of  our  churches  and 
public  buildings.  This  was  a  great  discovery,  and 
was  soon  adopted  in  our  country  ;  but  in  1772  there 
was  much  dissatisfaction  here  in  respect  to  America, 
and  philosopher  Franklin  himself  was  very  much 
distrusted.  Thereupon  an  Englishman  started 
another  kind  of  lightning-conductor  which  differed 
from  Franklin's  in  this  respect,  that  it  had  a  blunt 
end  instead  of  a  sharp  point.  King  George  I  IT., 
very  desperate  against  America,  went  in  immedi- 


10  THE   LIBIRTY   OF   THE   ABJECT. 

ately  for  blunt-ended  lightning-conductors  for  hij 
palaces.  The  Royal  Society  did  not  agree,  and  the 
King  sent  for  the  president,  Sir  John  Pringle,  and 
said,  '*  You  must  use  your  influence  with  the  Royal 
Society  to  introduce  blunt-ended  lightning-conduc- 
tors." Sir  John  replied,  "  Sire,  it  is  my  inclination 
as  it  is  my  duty  to  obey  you,  but  I  can  not  reverse 
the  laws  and  ordinances  of  nature."  "  Then  you 
had  better  resign,"  said  the  King.  But  Sir  John 
didn't  resign,  and  the  sharp  points  remain  to  this 
day  as  evidence  of  the  value  of  keeping  closely  to 
an  opinion  when  it  is  founded  on  the  laws  and  or- 
dinances of  nature.  We  sometimes  have  to  face 
this  great  potentate,  Public  Opinion,  and  it  some- 
times pulls  us  up  to  the  bar  of  public-house  opinion, 
and  would,  if  it  could,  make  us  give  way.  It  says, 
"  All  your  sharp  points  of  argument  should  be 
given  up.  Your  lines  are  right,  but  put  blunt  ends 
to  them."  We  must  stand  out  against  that.  We 
must  keep  up  our  bright,  sharp  points,  and  we 
shall  certainly  win,  and  in  that  winning,  ladies  and 
gentlemen,  we  shall  touch  no  man's  freedom.  We 
may  say,  in  the  words  which  Sheridan  Knowles  has 
put  in  the  mouth  of  his  hero,  Tell :  we  would  have 
every  man — 

"  Free  as  our  torrents  are  which  leap  our  rocks 
And  plough  our  valleys  without  asking  leave; 
Or  as  our  peaks  which  wear  their  caps  of  snow, 
In  very  presence,  of  the  regal  sun." 

But  this  freedom,  this  liberty,  must  not  be  a  created 
liberty.  It  must  be  so  pure,  so  natural,  that  the 
very  spirits  of  the  just  made  perfect  might  declare 
Oi  it,  "  It  is  eternal,  it  is  justified,  it  is  sanctified." 


WHY  I  BECAME  AN  ABSTAINER.  * 


DR.  RICHARDSON,  of  London,  author  of  the  cele- 
brated "  Cantor  Lectures  on  Alcohol"  and  "The 
Temperance  Lesson- Book,"  gives  his  reasons  for 
abstinence  in  an  address  in  Sheldonian  Theater,  Ox- 
ford, from  which  we  take  the  following: 

"  Let  me  say,  that  at  the  commencement  of  the 
labors  which  brought  me  to  the  conclusion  above 
stated,  I  had  no  bias  in  favor  of  or  preconceived 
opinion  respecting  alcohol. 

"Like  many  other  men  of  science,  I  had  been  too 
careless  or  too  oblivious  of  those  magnificent  labors 
which  the  advocates  of  temperance,  for  its  own  sake, 
had,  for  many  previous  years,  through  good  report 
and  evil  report,  so  nobly  and  truthfully  carried  out. 
But  for  what  may  be  called  one  of  the  accidents  of 
a  scientific  career  I  might,  indeed,  to  the  end  of  my 
days,  have  continued  negative  on  this  question. 

"  The  circumstance  that  led  me  to  the  special 
study  of  alcohol  is  simply  told.  In  the  year  1863, 
I  directed  the  attention  of  the  British  Association 
for  the  Advancement  of  Science,  during  its  meeting 
at  Newcastle,  to  the  action  of  a  chemical  substance 
called  nitrate  of  amyl,  the  physiological  properties 
of  which  I  had  for  some  months  previously  been 
subjecting  to  investigation.  My  researches  attract- 
ed so  much  attention  that  I  was  desired  by  the 
physiological  section  of  the  association,  over  which 
rrofessor  Rolleston  most  ably  presided,  to  continue 
them,  and,  in  the  course  of  pursuing  them,  other 
chemical  substances,  nearly  allied  to  that  from 
which  I  started,  came  under  observation.  Amongst 
tiic.se  was  the  well-known  chemical  product  which 
the  Arabian  chemist,  Altucasis,  is  said  first  to  have 
distilled  from  wine,  which,  on  account  of  its  sub- 
tlety, was  called  alcohol,  which  is  now  called  ethylic 


12  WHY   I   BECAME  AN  ABSTAINER. 

alcohol,  and  which  forms  the  stimulating  part  of  all 
\vines,  spirits,  beers,  and  other  ordinary  intoxicating 
drinks.  To  the  research  I  devoted  three  years, 
from  1863  to  1866,  modifying  experiments  in  every 
conceivable  way,  taking  advantage  of  seasons  and 
varying  temperatures  of  season,  extending  obser- 
vation from  one  class  of  animals  to  another,  and 
making  comparative  researches  with  other  bodies 
of  the  alcohol  series  than  the  ethylic  or  common 
alcohol. 

"The  results,  I  confess,  were  as  surprising  to  me 
as  any  one  else.  They  were  su prising  from  their 
definitiveness  and  their  uniformity.  They  were 
most  surprising  from  the  complete  contradiction 
they  gave  to  the  popular  idea  that  alcohol  is  a  sup« 
porter  and  sustainer  of  the  animal  temperature. 

"  I.  That  it  is  an  entire  fallacy  to  suppose  that  al- 
cohol, in  any  of  its  forms  as  intoxicating  drink,  is 
the  gift  of  God  to  man. 

"II.  That  if  the  habit  of  drinking  intoxicating 
beverages  is  never  indulged,  it  is  never  felt  as  a  want. 

"  III.  If  this  habit  be  indulged,  the  difficulties  ot 
throwing  it  off  are  tenfold  increased. 

"  IV.  You  may  further  teach  by  history  and  ex- 
ample— but  always  better  by  example — that  the 
hardest  work,  mental  and  bodily,  is  best  carried 
out  without  the  stimulating  effects  of  this  agent 
which  so  many  look  to  for  support  in  all  their  labors. 

"V.  That  alcohol  has  no  claim,  in  a  scientific 
sense,  to  be  considered  as  a  sustainer  either  of 
bodily  or  mental  life  or  work. 

"VI.  That  in  alcohol  there  is  nothing  that  can 
build  up  any  tissue  or  supply  any  force. 

"VII.  That  in  approaching  the  subject  of  tem- 
perance, and  in  showing  the  uselessness  of  the  most 
mischievous  of  all  agents  within  the  reach  of  men, 
you  are  promoting  a  good  which  extends  beyond 
your  own  time." 


EFFECTS  OF  ALCOHOL. 

BY  DR.  BENJAMIN  W.  RICHARDSON. 

AN  ADDRESS  AT   EXETER,   ENGLAND,   SEPTEMBER  28,    l88o. 


I  STAND  before  you  as  a  sanitarian.  I  can  have 
no  object  whatever  in  defending  the  temperance 
cause  except  in  my  own  solemn  convictions  of  its 
importance  as  one  of  the  basic  facts  of  sanitation, 
and  as  such  that  we  should  give  it  our  support.  1 
have  also  to  stand  on  other  ground.  One  of  the 
restless  spirits  of  our  country  in  the  latter  part  of  his 
life  was  constantly  putting  this  question  to  himself, 
"What  will  men  say  of  me  when  I  am  dead?" 
Well,  every  man  who  works  in  this  world  has  that 
to  say,  "  What  will  men  say  of  me  when  I  am  dead?" 
And  that  occurs  to  me  in  reference  to  what  I  speak 
and  write  now,  "What  will  afterward  be  said?" 
and  thus  I  would  only  leave  behind  me  that  at 
which  I  have  arrived  as  the  result  of  honest  convic- 
tion after  inquiry.  In  that  spirit  I  want  to  address 
you  to-day.  I  wish  for  no  professional  brother  to 
believe  it  because  I  say  a  thing  bearing  on  this 
question,  though  my  studies  may  have  been  longer 
than  his,  but  I  would  invoke  his  honest  judgment. 
He  has  the  most  perfect  right  to  think  and  act  in 
his  professional  thought  and  capacity  en  this  as  on 


2  THE  EFFECTS  OF  ALCOHOL. 

all  other  subjects ;  but  I  want  him,  if  possible,  to  see 
both  sides.  And  here  is  the  mistake  which  often 
occurs  in  men  of  science,  that  they  look  only  on 
that  side  of  the  temperance  question  in  which  they 
have  been  educated.  I  know  that  is  quite  possible 
and  often  most  natural,  and  I  shall  give  an  instance 
by  and  by  to  show  you  how  my  own  mind  was  in- 
fluenced in  that  way.  One  medical  man  has  stated 
authoritatively  and  officially  with  regard  to  alcohol 
that  it  is  "  a  food,  a  stimulant,  and  a  sedative."  He 
was  perfectly  justified  in  expressing  that  opinion ; 
but  I  want  the  profession  to  take  the  other  side  and 
analyze  such  a  statement  as  that.  If  a  thing  is  a 
food  it  is  not  a  stimulant,  for  a  food  is  something* 
which  sustains ;  and  if  it  is  a  stimulant  it  is  not  a 
sedative,  or  where  is  its  tranquillizing  power/ 
Therefore  this  seems  a  contradiction  in  terms.  If  I 
go  to  a  clock  and  wind  it  up,  I  give  it  food  in  that 
winding.  If  I  shorten  the  pendulum  I  make  it  g'« 
quicker.  I  use  that  which  becomes  a  stimulant 
there,  but  it  is  not  a  food  that  I  have  then  applied 
I  have  put  nothing  into  it.  If  I  stop  it,  that  is  * 
sedative.  I  have  stopped  it.  I  can  not  say  thes*1.- 
three  things  are  all  one.  Just  so  with  alcohol,  -f 
I  take  alcohol  I  don't  take  food  ;  I  take  something 
that  quickens  my  circulation.  I  do  not  take  a  seda- 
tive (unless,  indeed,  I  use  the  word  in  a  different 
sense  to  what  it  is  always  understood).  I  take 
something  that  may  exhaust  me  afterward,  and  in 
that  sense  make  me  weak  and  feeble,  but  trat  is  not 
a  sedative.  And  so  I  would  ask  medical  men  to 
consider  these  three  words,  look  at  their  meaning, 
and  see  how  they  apply  as  used.  To  say  them  ol 


THE  EFFECTS  OF  ALCOHOL.  3 

uny  one  substance  seems  to  my  mind  altogether 
illogical  and  out  of  the  question.  Recently  I  have 
been  studying  (as  a  student  again)  the  works  of  the 
masters  in  my  profession  on  one  particular  subject 
— that  of  the  degenerations  to  which  the  body  is 
subjected  during  life — those  slow  changes  which 
come  on,  making  the  animal  organs  different  from 
that  which  they  are  naturally;  and  I  have  been 
reading  without  the  slightest  selection  the  authori- 
ties on  the  causes  of  these  great  degenerations — 
degenerations  of  the  heart,  of  the  liver,  of  the  brain, 
i/nd  of  other  organs  of  the  body.  I  take  up  the 
works  of  those  who  have  had  nothing  to  do  with 
tnis  question,  who  are  simply  great  pathologists, 
and  I  say  this,  that  there  is  nothing  so  striking  in 
all  that  history  as  the  circumstantial  testimony 
which  these  men  bear  to  this  one  agent  (alcohol)  in 
the  production  of  these  degenerations.  We  find 
other  agencies'referred  to,  but  only  accidentally,  as 
it  were,  and  in  regard  to  particular  points;  but  on 
questions  of  pathology  this  has  an  all-pervading  in- 
fluence. "  This  degeneration  is  likely  induced  by 
alcohol — that  degeneration  springs  from  the  too 
free  use  of  spirit — that  degeneration  from  whisky — 
that  from  gin  " — and  so  forth ;  and  you  find  these 
men  by  consensus  of  opinion,  plainly  in  reference  to 
this  question,  writing  down  a  series  of  degenerations 
springing  from  that  one  cause,  which  put  together 
would  make  a  volume  of  the  largest  possible  kind. 
Now,  I  sav,  presuming  that  alcohol  is  a  food,  a 
stimulant,  and  a  sedative  (let  us  suppose  it  to  have 
the  whole  of. these  effects),  I  would  like  to  ask  a 
professional  friend  who  would  read  through  these 


4  THE  EFFECTS  OF  ALCOHOL. 

histories  in  the  same  way  as  I  have  done,  whether 
he  could  afterward  conscientiously  say  that  even 
advantage  should  be  taken  of  this  food,  stimulant, 
and  sedative  to  use  it  for  the  production  of  so  much 
disease  as  is  here  traced  to  it  as  a  cause  ? 

On  the  question  of  work,  too,  there  are  two  sides 
which  should  be  put  carefully  and  constantly  for- 
ward. It  is  common  to  say  that  we  give  this  sub- 
stance for  the  work  which  comes  out  of  it;  and  we 
total  abstainers  say  that  there  is  no  truth  in  that — 
that  there  is  no  work  to  be  got  out  of  it  at  all.  A 
large  number  of  other  men  of  science  say  there  is. 
I  want  them  to  look  at  the  question  now  in  regard 
to  work,  and  consider  the  other  side  of  that.  And 
here  I  will  tell  you  an  incident  in  my  own  life  which 
shows  how  men  may  be  biased  against  what  is  good 
sound  common  sense  and  judgment  for  many  years. 

In  the  early  part  of  my  life  I  practiced  medicine 
at  Mortlake,  and  I* had  under  my  ca*re  a  very  fa- 
mous rower — a  champion  rower — and  that  man  once 
consulted  me  professionally.  He  was  a  little  below 
par,  and  he  came  to  me  to  ask  me  what  he  should 
do.  He  was  training  then  for  a  race,  and  I  recom- 
mended him  to  take  so  much  wine  in  the  day.  He 
flatly  declined.  That  was  about  twenty-five  years 
ago,  before  the  temperance  cause  was  so  prominent 
as  it  is  now.  "  Well,"  he  said,  "  I  can't  take  any- 
thing of  that  sort,  for  I  shouldn't  win  my  race  if  I 
were  to  take  what  you  say."  "  Would  half  a  pint 
of  wine  a  day  make  a  difference  ?  "  "  Certainly,"  he 
said.  "In  what  way?"  "I  will  tell  you.  I  once 
won  a  race  and  regained  all  my  honors  in  a  very 
curious  manner.  I  had  against  me  a  competent 


THE  EFFECTS  OF  ALCOHOL.  5 

rower— a  man  as  good  as  myself— and  it  was  a  great 
occasion.  It  was  a  grand  match,  and  I  was  not  very 
well  on  the  particular  morning.  I  went  to  the  post 
to  be  started,  feeling  that  the  Fates  that  day  were 
against  me.  Most  curiously,  I  lost  the  toss,  so  that 
I  got  the  wrong  side  of  the  river,  with  the  sun 
in  my  face,  and  I  felt  that  the  race  was  all  up  with 
me ;  but  as  my  opponent  was  getting  into  the  boat 
a  friend  of  his,  and  a  supporter,  took  out  a  spirit 
flask  and  gave  him  a  nip  of  whisky,  and  I  said, 
'  That  is  as  good  as  the  sun  to  me  ; '  and  then,  not 
quite  satisfied,  he  gave  him  another,  and  I  said, 
'  That  is  equal  to  the  right  side  of  the  river  for  me.' 
Now  I  will  tell  you,  in  rowing  you  want  these 
things :  You  must  know  precisely  where  you  are 
going,  and  if  anything  springs  up  you  must  be  quite 
ready  for  it,  and  you  must  not  take  any  notice  oi 
the  cheering  going  on,  and  you  must  have  presence 
of  mind  in  all  that  occurs."  "Then,"  I  said,  "it 
seems  to  me  that  you  want  precision,  decision,  pres- 
ence of  mind,  and  endurance."  He  said,  "  Those 
are  the  four  qualities.  We  went  on  a  little,  stroke 
for  stroke,  so  that  it  was  quite  musical.  By  and  by 
there  was  a  little  jingle  in  his  stroke,  and  I  said, 
That  man  is  not  precise.  That  is  a  little  point  for 
me.  We  went  on  toward  Chiswick,  and  when  we 
got  opposite  that  place  there  was  something  float- 
ing along  which  looked  like  a  capsized  boat,  and  it 
started  us  both  for  a  moment.  It  was  a  question  to 
know  which  side  to  take,  and  I  immediately  decided 
and  gained  a  good  point  in  that  way,  and  as  we 
went  along  I  found  that  my  opponent  was  embar- 
rassed by  what  was  taking  place  around  him.  Finally 


6  THE  EFFECTS  OF  ALCOHOL. 

he  began  to  flag.  I  didn't  flag,  but  improved,  and 
I  won  the  race  by  a  boat's  length.  Those  two 
glasses  of  whisky,  I  believed,  turned  the  scale 
against  my  opponent  on  that  occasion,  and  for  that 
reason  I  will  never  take  any  stimulants  while  1  am 
training."  I  often  laughed  with  him  about  this,  not 
believing  it  for  twenty  years,  but  when  I  came  to 
my  scientific  research,  and  to  look  into  the  action 
of  alcohol  on  muscular  fiber  and  on  mental  action, 
I  found  that  that  man  was  absolutely  right,  and  I 
had  been  going  on  for  twenty  years  in  blind  igno- 
*  ance  and  prejudice,  and  there  was  the  plain  truth, 
il  I  had  had  the  common  sense  to  receive  it  from  a 
common-sense  man. 

I  was  able  to  convey  a  considerable  amount 
of  conviction  to  an  intelligent  scholar  a  little  time 
ago  by  a  simple  experiment.  I  was  in  his  house, 
and  he  was  extolling  wine  and  singing  its  praises. 

Fie  sang : 

Life  is  chequer'd  o'er  with  woe, 
Bid  the  ruddy  bumper  flow, 
Wine's  the  soul  of  man  below. 

He  sang  that  to  me  every  morning  in  order,  as  he 
said,  to  rouse  my  flagging  spirits.  I  said,  "  You  sing 
that  song  well.  Why  not  begin  with  wine  at  break- 
fast, and  give  it  to  your  servants?"  "My  dear 
friend,"  he  said,  "I  couldn't  get  through  (he  day. 
I  should  be  as  seedy  as  possible.  I  couldn't;  and 
as  for  my  servants,  if  I  gave  it  to  them  I  don't  know 
what  would  happen."  "Then,  when  do  you  take 
it?"  1  askccl.  "  When  the  cares  of  day  are  over, 
(hen's  the  time  for  a  few  glasses  of  wine  and  a  night- 
rap."  "  Will  you,"  1  said,  "  be  good  enough  to  feel 


THE  EFFECTS  OF  ALCOHOL  7 

my  pulse  as  I  stand  here?"  He  did.  "  Count  it 
carefully.  What  does  it  say?  "  "  Your  pulse  says 
74."  I  then  sat  down  in  a  chair.  "  Will  you  count 
it  now?"  "Your  pulse  has  gone  down.  Your 
pulse  is  now  70."  I  then  laid  myself  down  on  the 
couch,  and  said,  "  Will  you  take  it  again.  What  is 
it?"  "It  is  64;  what  an  extraordinary  thing." 
"  What  is  the  effect  of  position  on  the  pulse  ?  When 
you  lie  down  at  night  that  is  the  way  nature  gives 
your  heart  rest.  You  know  nothing  about  it,  but 
that  beating  organ  is  resting  to  that  extent,  and  ii 
you  reckon  it  up  it  is  a  great  deal  of  rest,  because 
in  lying  down  my  heart  is  doing  ten  strokes  less  per 
minute.  Multiply  that  by  60,  and  it  is  600.  Multi- 
ply it  by  eight  hours,  and  within  a  fraction  it  is 
5,000  strokes  different,  and  as  my  heart  is  throwing 
up  six  ounces  of  blood  at  every  stroke,  it  makes  a 
difference  of  30,000  ounces  of  lifting  during  a  night." 
"That  is  a  curious  fact;  but  what  has  k  to  do  with 
me  ?  "  "  When  I  lie  down  at  night  without  the  ale*  - 
hoi  that  is  the  rest  my  heart  gets,  but  when  you 
take  your  wine  or  grog  you  do  not  allow  that  res% 
for  the  influence  of  alcohol  is  to  increase  the  num- 
ber of  strokes,  and  instead  of  getting  this  rest  yo-i 
put  on  something  like  15,000  extra  strokes,  and  the 
result  is  you  rise  up  very  seedy,  as  you  yourself 
have  said,  with  the  result  of  a  restless  night,  and 
unfit  the  next  day  for  work  until  you  have  taken  a 
little  of  the  wine  which  fills  the  ruddy  bumper,  and 
which  you  say  is  the  soul  of  man  below."  His  wife 
said,  "  That  is  perfectly  true.  The  night  is  attended 
with  a  degree  of  unrest  and  broken  sleep  which  I 
can  hardly  describe,  and  which  gives  me  very 


8  THE  EFFECTS  OF  ALCOHOL. 

much  anxiety."  That  had  an  influence.  He  began 
to  reckon  up  those  figures,  and  think  what  It  meant 
lifting  up  an  ounce  so  many  thousand  times,  and  in 
the  result  he  became  a  total  abstainer  with  every 
benefit,  to  his  health,  and,  as  he  admits,  to  his  happi- 
ness. I  would  like  those  who  speak  of  alcohol  as 
something  to  be  taken  at  night  to  give  a  night's  sleep 
and  rest  and  comfort,  just  to  take  the  opposite  side 
of  the  question  into  consideration,  and  see  how  these 
two  positions  fit  in  together. 

I  should  like  every  one  who  is  interested  in  this 
question,  and  not  prepared  to  move  with  us  on  our 
side,  to  consider  the  matter  in  regard  to  premature 
decay.  I  would  ask  every  man  who  is  enjoying  the 
wine-cup  and  proposing  his  friend's  health,  and  all 
that  kind  of  jovial  thing,  just  to  remember  amongst 
his  circle  of  friends  how  many  that  he  knew  in  boy- 
hood have  now  advanced  to  middle  age,  who,  with- 
out being  drunkards  at  all,  have  fallen  insidiously 
stricken  by  mis  foe.  I  think  a  more  solemn  ques- 
tion could  not  be  put  to  a  body  of  middle-aged  men 
than  this.  They  will,  I  am  sure,  be  astounded  at 
the  number  of  men  that  they  can  reckon  up,  who, 
instead  of  passing  to  a  fine  old  age  with  all  that 
vigor  of  character  arid  power  of  speech,  have  in  the 
midst  of  their  very  usefulness,  and  when  the  wis- 
dom which  they  had  acquire-l  by  their  experience 
should  have  been  most  pronounced,  sunk  simply 
into  what  1  can  but  call  an  untimely  grave.  And 
when  that  is  considered,  do  they  think  that  the  use 
of  this  "food,  stimulant,  or  sed.Uive,"  should  be  so 
largely  employed  as  to  lead  to  such  dire  and  such 
entirely  unnecessary  results? 

PUBLISHED  BY  THE  NATIONAL  TEMPERANCE  SOCIETY  ANC 

PUBLICATION  HOUSE,  No.  58  READE  STREET  NEW 

YORK.    PRICE,  $6.00  PER  THOUSAND. 


TWENTY-ONE 

HISTORIC  LANDMARKS. 

BY  B.  W.   RICHARDSON,   M.D.,   F.R.S. 


WHEN  one  is  given  to  speaking  night  after  night, 
as  I  am  doing,  on  Temperance,  it  is  very  difficult 
to  find  fresh  matter  and  a  new  line  of  thought  to 
develop,  or  to  get  a  thought  which  would  lead  to  a 
discourse;  but  the  very  happy  suggestion  which 
the  Rev.  Stenton  Eardley  made  to  me  of  giving  an 
account  of  what  has  been  done  in  twenty-one  years 
by  the  Temperance  movement  did  afford  me  an 
opportunity  of  looking  back  and  trying  to  ascertain, 
from  the  direct  personal  knowledge  which  I  have 
of  this  great  queston  of  Temperance,  the  course  that 
has  been  followed  in  my  department  of  it,  and  the 
results  at  which  we  have  arrived.  I  have  noted 
down  twenty-one  points,  upon  each  of  which  I  will 
offer  a  few  observations.  There  are  twenty-one 
salient  points  in  which  great  advance  has  been. 
made  in  relation  to  education  among  the  masses, 
and  indeed  all  classes,  on  this  subject. 

I. — ALCOHOL  AND  ITS  PURCHASERS. 

First  of  all  I  remember  that  twenty-one  years  ago 
it  was  a  very  common  notion — one  of  the  most  com- 


2  Twenty-one  Historic  Landmarks. 

mon  of  all  notions— that  wine,  beer,  and  spirits  were 
things  quite  distinct  from  water.  The  common  im- 
pression was  that  when  these  things  were  taken 
they  were  distinctive  agents  of  themselves,  that 
there  was  no  water  connected  with  them  according 
to-ordinary  acceptation,  and  even  through  our  bet- 
ter classes  this  view  was  constantly  expressed.  A 
gentleman  sitting  at  table  would  tell  you  that  it  was 
the  best  champagne  he  provided,  no  watery  stuff, 
and  that  he  had  given  £7  a  dozen  for  it.  You  were 
under  the  delusion,  if  you  took  this  man's  word, 
that  this  was  no  watery  beverage,  but  something 
different.  You  found  the  poor  man  at  the  inn 
smacking  his  lips  and  saying,  "  This  is  no  water; 
it  is  good  malt  and- hops."  So  a  person  taking  a 
glass  of  spirit  which  burnt  his  lips  and  throat 
thought  it  all  the  better  the  hotter  it  was,  "  because," 
he  would  say,  "  it  is  furthest  removed  from  water." 
There  is  no  doubt  a  great  advance  in  the  public 
knowledge  on  this  one  topic.  We,  as  men  of  science 
have  so  impregnated  the  public  mind  with  the  facts 
of  this  question  that  there  are  very  few  who  do  not 
know  that  this  which  is  sold  as  beer,  and  wine,  and 
spirit  is  always  largely  water.  The  bottle  of  cham 
pagne  which  costs  so  much  per  dozen,  when  it 
comes  up  for  investigation,  what  does  it  turn  out  to 
be?  It  turns  out  to  be  a  fluid  of  which,  if  you  take 
one  hundred  pints,  ninety  pints  are  water — a  large 
sum,  £j  per  dozen,  to  pay  for  a  fluid  of  this  kind 
If  you  turn  to  the  beer  which  the  man  is  drinking 
at  the  inn  you  tind  the  same  story.  I  remember 
about  twenty-one  years  ago  Mr.  Ray  wrote  a  very 
remarkable  and  able  book  on  the  malt  tax.  His  idea 


Twenty-one  Historic  Landmarks.  3 

was  that  the  Government  was  greatly  defrauded, 
not  by  the  great  brewers,  but  by  the  retailers,  who 
sometimes  charged  their  beer  with  water,  thus  re- 
ducing the  tax.  He  went  about  London  from  day 
to  day  collecting  at  various  places  bottles  of  beer, 
which  he  brought  to  my  laboratory  for  analysis.  I 
remember  the  result  of  that  inquiry  was  to  find  that 
as  a  general  fact  (sometimes  there  was  a  little  ex- 
cess of  spirit)  that  beer  sold  conveyed  to  the  man 
who  bought  it  from  ninety-four  to  ninety-five  parts 
in  the  one  hundred  of  simple  water.  So  with  re- 
gard to  spirit.  In  sherry  there  will  be  three  parts 
of  water  to  one  of  spirit ;  in  brandy,  the  strongest 
spirit,  fifty  of  water  to  fifty  of  spirit;  and  now  J 
think,  through  the  length  and  breadth  of  the  land, 
we  are  making  an  impression,  and  those  who  are 
not  engaged  in  this  question  of  scientific  research 
can  use  this  argument  as  forcibly  as  we  can,  and 
perhaps  more  so,  that  people  who  think  they  are 
paying  these  large  sums  of  money  for  something 
exceedingly  choice  are  after  all  unwittingly,  and  m. 
a  very  unfortunate  way,  water  buyers  and  water 
drinkers. 

II.— ALCOHOL — WHAT  is  IT? 

Then  another  point  has  been  brought  out.  When 
the  idea  of  spirit  was  brought  forward,  and  we 
talked  of  the  strength  that  was  in  beers,  wines,  and 
spirits,  it  was  thought  that  this  one  particular  alco- 
hol or  spirit  was  the  only  thing  of  its  kind.  Men  of 
science  knew  better,  but  the  general  impression  was, 
and  is  to  some  extent  still,  that  the  substance  which 
we  call  spirit  is  a  thing  alone  of  itself,  that  it  stands 


4  Twenty-one  Historic  Landmarks. 

I 

as  though  there  was  nothing  else  like  it.  Now,  I 
hope  we  have  pretty(fairly  imbued  the  nation  with 
the  fact  that  this  spirit  of  wine  is  only  one  of  a  great 
family;  that  there  are  an  immense  number  of  alco- 
hols— dozens,  in  fact — some  derived  fr,om  wood, 
some  from  wheat,  the  potato  spirit,  and  so  on — all 
bodies  of  the  same  chemical  family,  and  not  in  any 
way  distinct,  except  by  the  simple  accidents  of  taste, 
and  weight,  and  a  few  other  physical  varieties,  from 
that  alcohol  which  we  drink.  As  Professor  Glad- 
stone has  pointed  out,  it  is  a  mere  accident  that  this 
came  into  common  use — this  alcohol  from  grain.  It 
might  have  been  any  other  alcohol  that  came  first 
into  play.  We  nov/  know  that  this  is  not  one  of  the 
special  things  coming  to  us  as  a  distinctive  thing, 
but  as  one  of  a  family,  and  has  only  come  into  use 
or  habit,  as  it  were,  by  accident. 

III. — ALCOHOL  NOT  A  FOOD. 

Another  point.  I  do  think  we  have  fairly  brought 
out  what  is  the  positive  effect  of  this  particular 
alcohol  we  take  in  this  sense — that  it  can  in  no 
way  be  considered  a  food.  We  have  shown  that 
foods  are  substances  that  either  make  up  the  great 
mass  of  the  body  like  water,  which  exists  to  about 
seventy-five  per  cent.,  or  substances  which  build  up 
the  tissues  like  albumen,  egg,  cheese,  meats,  etc 
They  are  substances  that  burn  in  the  body  like  fat, 
and  oil,  and  starch, and  sugar,  which  go  to  produce 
animal  warmth,  and  keep  up  the  vital  fire,  or  sub- 
stances which  go  to  make  up  the  bony  structure. 
We  have  shown  that  alcohol  does  not  belong  tc 
water,  and  there  is  nothing  in  alcohol  chemically 


Twenty-one  Historic  Landmarks.  5 

which  it  can  represent  in  regard  to  meat  substances, 
and  the  same  with  the  structures  which  fill  up  the 
skeleton  of  the  body.  Thus,  when  we  ask  whether 
this  agent  can  be  classed  with  the  foods  which  keep 
up  the  aniinal  warmth,  we  find  that  its  imbibition 
reduces  the  animal  temperature,  and  prevents  the 
creation  of  those  products  which  come  from  the 
burning  of  the  body.  Therefore,  so  far  as  alcohol 
is  concerned,  we  can  positively  affirm  that  it  is  no 
food  at  all,  that  it  produces  exceptional  effects  upon 
the  body,  but  it  is  no  more  a  food  than  chloroform 
and  ether  or  anything  of  the  kind  are  foods. 

IV. — ALCOHOL  AND  PRACTICAL  ABSTAINERS. 

Again,  we  have  traced  out  that  this  agent  acts 
just  as  do  other  such  agents.  Men  of  science  have 
come  by  a  common  consent  to  this  position,  that 
there  must  be  a  certain  point  when  the  quantity 
must  not  be  taken  beyond  that  point.  There  is  not 
a  single  physician  living,  who  is  a  thoughtful  man, 
not  a  man  of  any  moment  in  the  scientific  world  ol 
thought,  or  of  literature  bearing  on  science,  or  in  de- 
bate, who  would  not  tell  you  candidly  and  honestly 
at  this  day  that  there  must  be  a  very  strict  border 
drawn  as  to  where  this  influence  must  stop.  Twenty 
}tears  ago  men  did  not  think  of  a  limited  quantity 
at  all.  "  Oh  !  "  says  the  man  who  wishes  to  please 
all  parties  and  preach  moderation — to  those  who 
abstain  and  those  who  take  a  little — "  you  may  take 
a  little,  but  it  must  not  exceed  the  physiological 
quantity,"  no  more  than  you  can  by  your  good 
health  dispose  of  without  injury  to  yourself.  "  You 
may  take  one  and  a  half  ounces  of  alcohol,  if  you 


6  Twenty-one  Historic  Landmarks. 

like,  in  the  twenty-four  hours."  That  means  a  very 
minute  quantity  indeed.  It  would  be  represented 
by  two  or  three  glasses  of  ale.  "  You  may  take  that 
in  the  twenty-four  hours,  but  you  must  not  exceed 
that  quantity.  If  you  do,  then  you  run.  the  certain 
risk  of  slipping  into  disease."  Now  we  have  brought 
the  matter  down  to  a  very  fine  point  indeed,  and 
some  even  reduce  the  quantity  still  lower.  One  of 
the  most  distinguished  men  in  this  kingdom,  who 
was  presiding  where  I  was  speaking  the  other  day, 
said  that  when  he  went  out  hunting  or  to  public 
gatherings  the  most  he  could  take  was  a  teaspoon- 
ful  of  this  spirit.  I  said,  "  Practically  you  are  an 
abstainer."  "  Yes,"  he  replied,  "  but  that  just  pre- 
vents me  declaring  myself."  There  are  thousands 
who,  knowing  these  facts,  actually  take  a  small 
quantity  to  avoid  being  called  abstainers,  waiting 
until  the  cause  gets  greater  strength  and  power. 
Still,  this  is  a  hopeful  position. 

V. — ALCOHOL  AND  ATHLETICS. 

Twenty-one  years  ago  it  was  a  common  belief 
that  men  did  more  work  when  they  took  a  little 
drink — not  a  little,  for  I  think  I  am  wrong  there, 
but  when  they  began  with  a  little  and  went  on,  and 
great  feats  were  performed  constantly  by  men  when 
they  were  taking  ths  drink — they  thought  the  tak- 
ing of  the  drink  was  the  necessity  for  the  feat. 
Science  showed  that  there  was  no  strength  got  by 
alcohol,  that  it  was  perfectly  impossible  that,  that 
which  did  not  build  up  the  tissues  of  the  body,  did 
not  supply  water,  warmth,  or  vitality  to  the  body, 
could  give  strength  to  the  body,  and  numbers  be- 


Twenty-one  Historic  Landmarks.  7 

gan  to  try  it  independently  of  science,  and  so  two 
favoring  currents  set  in.  Now,  what  are  the  facts? 
To  all  men  who  are  going-  into  training  for  rowing, 
racing,  long  walks  such  as  Mr.  Weston  takes,  firing, 
and  the  like,  whatever  they  are  going  to  do  with 
regard  to  training  for  these  pursuits,  they  discover 
the  advantage  which  they  get  if  they  altogether  ab- 
stain from  the  use  of  this  degrading  and  debasing 
physical  agent. 

^J       VI. — ALCOHOL  AND  BRAIN  WORKERS. 

/  Another  advance  has  been  made  with  regard  to 
mental  work.  I  remember  the  time  when  it  was 
considered  necessary  to  write  at  night  that  a  man 
must  prime  himself  with  a  glass  of  wine  or  spirit. 
Here  again  our  scientific  works  come  into  play, 
and  we  have  been  able  to  show  positively  that  noth- 
ing is  so  injurious  to  mental  work  and  capacity  as 
for  any  one  to  lace  himself  up  with  strong  drink, 
under  the  idea  that  he  is  assisting  himself.  All  our 
medical  authorities  in  this  day  proclaim  that  the 
general  fact,  and  they  proclaim  it  from  the  reasons 
which  are  most  fearfully  standing  out  day  by  day 
in  the  most  glaring  colors,  and  on  the  most  unmis- 
takable lines.  The  very  best  of  men  (such  is  the  evi- 
dence) have  fallen,  from  this  idea,  that  being  en- 
gaged  in  mental  or  artistic  work,  they  would  gain 
assistance  from  that  agent  which,  of  all  others,  is  to 
them  the  most  enticing  and  the  most  perilous.  It 
is  this  class  that  most  readily  succumb.  Their  nerv- 
ous tension  is  great,  the  brain  is  great.  The  brain 
is  an  organ  rich  in  fluid.  The  little  excitement  is 
for  the  moment  very  pleasant,  but  it  is  not  an  ex 


8  Twenty-one  Historic  Landmarks. 

citement  that  can  be  kept  up  by  repeating  the  least 
quantity;  more  must  be  taken  each  time,  and  then 
the  whole  system  in  these  men  becomes  absolutely 
saturated  (and  the  term  is  scientifically  correct.)  with 
this  destructive  agent;  and  so  they  fall,  and  in  my 
time  I  have  seen  artists  of  the  highest  class,  mu- 
sicians of  the  highest  class,  writers  of  the  highest 
class,  and  the  best  members  of  my  own  profession, 
and  the  clerical  profession,  and  the  legal  profession, 
fall  in  spite  of  themselves,  in  spite  of  all  you  can  say 
to  them,  because  upon  their  susceptible,  refined, 
nervous  organization  this  is  of  all  others  the  most 
deadly,  the  most  mortal  of  poisons.  This  impres- 
sion has  had  its  influence  all  through  society,  but 
whether  there  is  a  great  reaction  in  favor  of  the  sim- 
ple lines  of  nature  or  not,  this  is  quite  certain :  that 
the  evidence  that  should  lead  to  such  reaction  is 
now  fairly  and  fully  before  the  world,  and  it  has 
been  put  before  it  by  the  labors  of  those  who  have 
worked  on  the  scientific  basis  during  the  past 
twenty  years. 

VII. — ALCOHOL  AND  CLIMATIC  EXTREMES. 

Twenty-one  years  ago,  except  amongst  the  total 
abstainers  themselves,  it  was  believed  that  to  meet 
the  vicissitudes  of  cold  and  of  heat  it  was  necessary 
that  a  certain  amount  of  alcohol  should  be  taken  ; 
and  so  our  ships  went  out  to  the  Arctic  regions 
charged  with  spirits  to  "assist"  the  men,  and  our 
soldiers  were  sent  out  to  India  charged  with  spirit 
rations  to  give  to  the  men.  Look  at  the  extreme 
absurdity  of  this  practice.  If  the  men  that  went  due 
north  had  this  alcohol  to  warm  them,  the  men  that 


Tivcnty-one  Historic  Landmarks.  g 

went  to  tropical  climes  could  not  want  it  for  this. 
Did  they  want  it  to  cool  them?  What  is  the  evi 
dence?  We  have  proved  that  under  cold  there  is 
nothing  so  bad  as  this  spirit,  and  that  it  is  as  it  were 
death  added  to  sleep,  and  when  the  temperature  ot 
the  body  is  raised  by  extreme  warmth,  then  there 
is  nothing  so  bad  as  the  tension  produced  in  the 
blood  by  this  light  vapor  of  alcohol.  We  have 
shown  through  science  what  is  the  effect  of  alcohol 
on  heat  and  cold,  and  have  shown  that  in  both  cases 
it  must  from  the  nature  of  its  action  be  ruinous  to 
health  and  life.  That  has  had  a  good  effect.  We 
now  know  that  those  men  who  have  been  total  ab- 
stainers have  lived  best,  worked  hardest,  suffered 
least,  and  come  home  soundest.  We  know  that  in 
the  tropics  those  men  who  have  taken  least  have 
fought  the  hardest  battles  and  made  the  best 
marches ;  and  those  who  have  taken  none  at  all 
have  been  better  off  still.  In  tropical  weather  we 
have  found  that  the  mortal  disease  which  kills  so 
many,  and  which  is  called  sunstroke — that  the  peo- 
ple thus  stricken  are  riot  all  persons  in  perfect 
health,  but  those  who  have  prepared  themselves  for 
the  effect  of  the  sun  direct  upon  them  by  the  intro- 
duction into  their  system  of  this  agent. 

VIII. — ALCOHOL  vs.  WATER. 

Twent}7-one  years  ago  it  was  supposed  that  per- 
sons could  live  for  a  certain  length  of  time  upon 
alcohol,  and  one  of  the  hardest  nuts  we  have  had  to 
crack  has  been  to  meet  this  statement.  It  was  very 
common  to  give  to  persons  weak  and  feeble,  wine 
and  strong  drink,  and  they  lived  upon  that,  as  it 


io  Twenty-one  Historic  Landmarks. 

seemed,  so  well  that  nobody  could  be  convinced  for 
many  years  that  this  was  not  good  in  certain  cases 
of  weakness  and  exhaustion  and  want  of  other  fluid. 
As  we  have  thought  over  the  matter,  the  facts  have 
come  out,  that  what  is  most  wanted  by  these  starv- 
ing people,  that  which  keeps  them  alive,  is  not  the 
alcohol,  but  the  water  that  is  commingled  with  it. 
This  person  who  is  said  to  take  a  bit  of  rusk,  and 
with  that  so  much  gin  and  water  or  champagne, 
has  not  been  living  by  virtue  of  the  alcohol  or  spirit, 
but  by  virtue  of  the  water  that  has  been  taken  with 
that  limited  fare,  and  we  have  come  to  a  positive 
conclusion  and  knowledge  that  a  man  may  go  on 
for  days  and  weeks,  and  may  live  as  it  were  upon 
himself,  if  you  will  simply  supply  him  with  a  suffi- 
cient quantity  of  water.  Take  the  case  of  the  Welsh 
miners.  They  were  placed  in  a  cell,  away  from  all 
the  world  for  many  days,  and  deprived  of  all  food. 
If  they  had  had  as  much  as  a  few  ounces  of  brandy, 
only  an  ounce  per  man,  all  those  who  are  opposed 
to  us  would  have  cried  out,  "  Behold  what  a  little 
quantity  of  alcohol  has  done  "  ;  but,  as  if  the  experi- 
ment had  been  intended  for  the  scientific  develop- 
ment of  our  cause,  there  was  not  a  drop  of  anything 
containing  spirit  among  them,  but  there  was  in  that 
dark  cave  at  the  feet  of  these  imprisoned  men  a  lit- 
tle spring  or  rill,  and  they  laved  at  that,  and  drank 
it,  and  upon  that  they  lived  through  long  trial. 
They  lived  comparatively  well,  and  they  came  out 
almost  unscathed — a  proof,  beyond  any  that  could 
be  brought  to  light  by  experimental  research,  that 
it  is  possible  to  live  for  a  long  period  of  days  under 
the  greatest  imaginable  excitement  and  anxiety  of 


Twenty-one  Historic  Landmarks.  n 

mind,  in  the  greatest  possible  melancholy,  on  this 
one  fluid  \vhich  has  been  distilled  in  the  rivers  and 
in  the  clouds  for  our  use  and  for  our  life.  I  have 
myself  known  an  instance  where,  for  fifty-three 
days,  life  has  been  maintained  solely  on  water.  To 
those  unfortunate  people  who,  for  some  reason  or 
another,  are  unable  to  take  food  at  all,  and  who  can 
only  drink  small  quantities  of  fluid,  there  is  nothing 
so  injurious  as  the  administration  of  stimulants  in 
any  form.  For  months  they  will  live  on  water  and 
vnilk,  and  live  a  comparatively  comfortable  life,  but 
touch  them  with  this  stimulant,  make  the  waste  go 
on  faster,  make  their  hearts  beat  quicker,  and  then 
directly  they  are  as  if  they  had  had  to  perform  a 
work  of  labor  for  which  they  had  no  strength. 
These  people  who  are  said  to  have  lived  on  alcohol 
have  in  reality  lived  on  the  water  in  spite  of  the 
alcohol. 

IX. — ALCOHOL  AS  A  MEDICINE. 

Another  point.  I  recollect  twenty  years  ago  that 
alcohol  was  considered  the  grand  panacea  in  dis- 
eases. For  my  part,  though  I  had  not  then  become 
a  total  abstainer,  I  had  always  stood  aloof  from  this 
method  of  treating  all  descriptions  of  disease,  and 
particularly  diseases  of  an  exhaustive  kind,  with 
large  quantities  of  alcohol.  In  my  student  life  I 
observed  in  cases  of  fever — and  I  had  a  great  deal 
to  do  with  it  in  the  epidemic  of  1847 — that  the  free 
administration  of  alcohol  always  produced  a  great 
deal  of  excitement  first,  and  then  depression,  and 
then  sleep,  and  a  delirium  which  did  not  seem  to 
be  very  different  from  the  delirium  of  drunkenness, 


12  Twenty-one  Historic  Landmarks. 

and  yet  under  the  influence  of  masters  who  said  this 
was  necessary,  a  student  was  obliged  to  accept  that 
that  was  the  right  treatment.  Later  in  life,  when  I 
began  to  practice  for  myself,  and  found  a  very  dis- 
tinguished physician  praising  this  treatment  in  all 
directions,  and  a  number  of  disciples  following  this 
man,  I  was  obliged  to  hold  aloof,  and  be  somewhat 
unpopular  because  I  would  moderate  the  quantity 
of  spirit  that  was  being  given;  and  then  gradually 
the  truth  began  to  dawn  upon  me  and  others  that 
the  thing  was  all  wrong,  and  through  the  great 
efforts  made  by  a  very  few  men,  in  the  first  instance, 
what  is  the  result? — that  the  whole  of  this  heroic 
line  of  treatment  of  disease,  not  of  ounces  of  spirit, 
but  of  pints  per  day,  has  been  altogether  given  up. 
The  idea  of  the  brandy  treatment  of  fever  has  pass- 
ed nearly  away.  To  Dr.  Gairdner,  of  Glasgow,  we 
are  greatly  indebted.  With  a  boldness  which  few 
men  under  the  circumstances  would  have  evinced, 
he  eliminated  these  stimulants  from  his  wards  one 
by  one.  He  found  persons  come  there  sick  with 
the  disease  and  die  at  the  rate  of  thirty-six  per 
cent.  In  from  two  to  three  years,  by  steadily  and 
with  truest  conservatism  reducing  the  quantity  of 
alcohol  until  he  brought  it  to  a  minimum,  or  to 
nothing  at  all,  he  gives  results  of  deaths  at  the  rate 
of  eight  or  nine  per  cent.  We  are  all  struck  by  this, 
and  you  will  find  wherever  you  go — France  has  not 
caught  the  contagion — that  this  treatment  of  dis- 
ease by  large  quantities  of  drink  has  passed  into 
oblivion,  never,  I  hope,  to  rise  again,  and  passed 
away  with  results  at  which  every  one  wonders,  with 
results  in  recoveries  which  never  could  have  been 


Twenty-one  Historic  Landmarks.  13 

hoped  for  if  by  a  slow  and  gradual  process  from 
that  which  was — yes,  I  will  say  it  boldly — vicious 
and  dangerous,  and  even  fatal,  a  different  system 
had  not  been  carried  out. 

X. — ALCOHOLIC  DISEASE. 

Twenty-one  years  ago  we  attributed  but  little  to 
alcohol  as  a  cause  of  disease.  We  said  that  there 
was  a  disease  called  gin-drinker's  liver,  and  that 
this  was  attended  afterward  with  dropsy,  and  led  to 
a  certain  fixed  mortality.  We  heard  also  of  delirium 
tremens.  We  heard  of  mania  a  potu,  as  the  French 
call  it,  or  "  dipsomania,"  as  we  call  it.  You  will, 
however,  find  now  that  the  word  alcoholic  has  be- 
come an  adjective  in  disease.  Men  speak  of  alco- 
holic phthisis  or  consumption.  I  was  the  first  to 
discover  that  there  was  a  particular  form  of  con- 
sumption very  fatal  in  its  character  which  was 
peculiar  to  persons  who  indulged  largely  in  alco- 
hol, which  was  specifically  alcoholic  consumption. 
That  has  been  accepted,  and  later  on  other  forms  of 
disease — liver  disease,  heart  disease,  paralysis,  apo- 
plexy, various  forms  of  dyspepsia,  premature  old 
age  and  death.  You  will  say  a  man  has  got  alco- 
holic paralysis ;  he  has  died  from  apoplexy,  the  result 
of  alcohol ;  he  is  prematurely  old  from  alcohol — that 
is  the  evidence  you  get  now  ;  but  you  did  not  get 
it  twenty-one  years  ago.  The  facts  had  always  been 
these;  all  history  had  told  the  facts;  but  they  had 
not  been  analyzed  and  traced  to  their  true  source. 
We  had  not  known  that  it  was  from  the  influence 
of  this  one  particular  agent  that  all  this  vast  mass  of 
disease  was  springing.  A  professional  brother,  go- 


14  Twenty-one  Historic  Landmarks. 

ing  farther  than  I  would  have  gone,  has  even  said 
that  in  walking  his  hospital  for  twenty-five  years  he 
has  been  led  to  the  conclusion  that  sixty  to  seventy 
of  the  cases  of  disease  which  came  there  were  cases 
of  disease  brought  about  either  directly  or  indirectly 
by  this  one  agent. 

XL — ALCOHOL  AND  THE   PHYSIOLOGICAL   MINI- 

MUM. 

Another  point.  We  have  known  always  that 
when  a  man  or  woman  sat  down  at  table,  and  began 
to  take  wine  too  freely,  there  is  a  stage  of  excite- 
ment, another  stage  of  more  excitement,  another 
stage  of  wasted  excitement,  and  coldness  and  pallor, 
or  darkness  of  the  face,  and  a  final  stage,  when  the 
body  lies  helpless,  or,  as  we  should  call  it,  dead 
drunk.  That  was  known  as  regards  the  first  effects 
of  alcohol.  What  did  we  now  learn?  We  know 
that  the  slow,  insidious  effect  of  alcohol  upon  per- 
sons taking  it  day  by  day  and  year  by  year  at  last 
gives  us  great  populations  who,  not  being  intoxi- 
cated in  this  special  or  acute  form,  are  still  its  vic- 
tims in  the  same  way.  We  know  there  are  popula- 
tions who  can  go  about  and  just  take  the  "physio- 
logical quantity  "  which  brings  them  up  to  the  first 
stage;  and  then  numbers  who  begin  rather  early  in 
the  day,  and  go  from  bar  to  bar  and  place  to  place, 
are  perpetually  in  the  second  stage  ;  and  others  wha 
go  en  day  by  day,  and  never  go  to  bed  thoroughly 
sober,  are  in  the  third  stage.  And  when  we  go  in- 
to our  asylums  and  hospitals  we  find  the  victims  of 
general  paralysis,  who  are  unable  to  help  them- 
selves, who  are  practically  speechless,  and  practi- 


Twenty-one  Historic  Landmarks.  15 

cally  dead  drunk  from  the  permanent  use,  and  this 
because  they  have  advanced  in  this  slow,  insidious 
manner  into  the  fourth  stage,  in  which  they  are  ripe 
and  ready  to  drop  into  the  grave.  Of  this  great 
population  this  fact  is  standing  well  out  before  the 
world,  and  the  more  fully  it  is  now  declared,  the 
more  certainly  will,  I  think,  the  common  sense  of 
mankind  come  to  bear  upon  it,  and  say  we  will  not  be 
/epresentatives  in  the  sole  form  of  what  you  may  call 
death  by  drink,  any  more  than  we  will  be  the  de- 
graded representatives  of  it  in  the  acute  form  at  the 
table  when  the  glass  of  wine  is  commenced,  up  to 
the  time  when  there  is  perfect  insensibility. 

XII.— ALCOHOL  AND  LONGEVITY. 

Another  point.  Twenty-one  years  ago  these  facts 
about  disease  and  short  life  from  drink,  not  being  so 
recognized,  our  insurance  companies  were  blind  to 
them  ;  but  now  so  keen  are  they  on  this  question  01 
the  effect  of  drink  upon  the  persons  who  come  to 
be  insured,  that  on  the  lives  of  those  who  sell  strong 
drink  there  is  actually  an  extra  tariff,  and  the  ques- 
tion asked  by  the  insurance  companies  is  the  ques- 
tion of  sobriety,  for  the  company  knows  that  there 
is  nothing  so  fatal  in  a  general  way,  or  so  likely  to 
lead,  not  simply  to  disease  from  the  agent  itself,  but 
springing  up  and  intensifying  by  its  employment 
other  diseases,  as  the  free  use  of  this  particular  de- 
structive national  enemy. 

XIII. — ALCOHOL  AND  MORTALITY. 

Another  point.  We  have  figures  in  regard  to 
the  mortality  in  reference  to  this  agent  which  are 


1 6  Twenty-one  Historic  Landmarks. 

startling,  and  which  twenty -one  years  ago  we 
should  never  have  conceived  as  possible.  Lately 
we  have  got  much  more  refined  examination  of 
facts  than  formerly.  There  has  been  a  difference 
of  opinion  as  to  the  real  mortality  from  the  use  ol 
strong  drink.  Dr.  Farr,  who  thought  that  the  mor- 
tality was  very  much  overrated,  has  since  said  that 
forty  to  fifty  thousand  a  year  die  from  what  he  calls 
"tippling."  Dr.  Farr  before  he  resigned  his  post 
was  so  good  as  to  allow  me  (being  then  engaged  in 
delivering  a  course  of  Cantor  lectures  on  the  mor- 
tality in  industrial  occupations  to  the  number  of 
seventy)  to  examine  the  returns,  and  this  came  out, 
as  a  startling  fact,  that  there  were  variations  from 
70  to  138,  loo  being  the  standard — that  is  to  say,  il 
the  mean  mortality  of  the  whole  of  the  occupations 
in  the  years  examined  was  100,  then  the  most  favor- 
able occupations  went  up  to  70,  and  those  that  were 
least  favorable  came  down  to  something  consider- 
ably over  100.  We  find  tha-t  when  we  get  to  one 
occupation  we  get  to  the  lowest  but  one.  Amongst 
those  engaged  in  the  sale,  of  spirits  we  find  138 
deaths  to  the  hundred  to  the  mean  of  population. 
The  grocers  who  before  they  had  the  license  to  sell 
spirits  were  standing  in  a  most  favorable  place  on 
the  scale — 86  to  100 — since  they  began  to  sell  the 
drink  have  begun  to  go  down,  and  show  a  higher 
mortality.  •  Then  you  see  what  an  important  point 
we  have  scored — that  just  in  proportion  as  this 
agent  is  approached  by  the  multitude  which  deals 
with  it,  just  in  proportion  does  that  vast  multitude 
begin  to  die  with  the  rest  of  its  fellows. 


Twenty-one  Historic  Landmarks.  17 

XIV. — ALCOHOL  AND  INSANITY. 

Then  as  regards  insanity.  Exactly  in  the  same 
way  as  the  body  ceases  to  exert  its  proper  power 
under  this  agent,  so  the  mind  begins  to  go.  There 
is  great  difference  of  opinion  as  to  the  amount  ol 
mental  disease  produced  by  alcohol.  Twenty  years 
ago  the  subject  was  not  under  discussion.  Now  it 
is,  and  our  commissioners  are  reporting  upon  it. 
There  is  a  difference  of  opinion,  but  it  is  generally 
admitted  that  there  is  a  very  large  amount  of  in- 
sanity produced  by  drink  directly  or  indirectly. 
Dr.  Edgar  Shepherd  declares  that  forty  per  cent, 
of  the  persons  who  come  into  the  great  asylum  of 
Colney  Hatch  are  brought  there  by  the  direct  or 
indirect  effects  of  drink.  The  Royal  Commission- 
ers say  that  the  direct  effects  are  represented  by 
fourteen  per  cent.  It  is  difficult  to  get  at  the  direct 
and  separate  them  from  the  indirect  effects.  Sup- 
pose it  were  only  that,  see  what  an  important  point 
it  has  brought  forth.  I  hold  in  my  hand  the  record 
of  232  cases  published  by  Dr.  Mason,  of  Fort  Hamil- 
ton. Dr.  Mason  shows  from  the  persons  who  have 
been  under  his  own  care  that  it  is  not  the  poor  and 
the  badly  educated,  but  that  all  classes  are  affected 
through  this  agent,  and  are  represented  in  his 
asylum.  He  says:  "  We  have  at  present  amongst 
our  patients  clergymen,  lawyers,  physicians,  and 
representatives  from  all  classes  of  society  who  once 
held  remunerative  and  responsible  positions,  but 
who  now,  voluntarily  in  many  instances,  seek  the 
shelter  and  restorative  aid  which  our  asylum 
affords."  He  goes  on  to  say  how  this  inebriety  is 


1 8  Twenty-one  Historic  Landmarks. 

brought  on  and  produced  by  the  drink,  and  he 
would  put  as  mental  alienation  from  drink  the  sta- 
tistics far  higher  than  Dr.  Shepherd.  You  see  what. 
a  lesson  this  is  to  us,  that  there  should  be  not  only 
the  physical,  but  the  mental  death  so  distinctly 
brought  out  by  the  use  of  this  agent. 

XV. — ALCOHOL  AND  HEREDITY. 

Another  point,  and  it  is  a  sad  and  impressive 
one.  We  know  that  twenty  years  ago  we  had  no 
kind  of  knowledge  of  an  exact  nature  with  regard 
to  the  effect  of  heredity  in  drink.  Dr.  Connolly,  the 
late  Sir  John  Forbes,  and  Dr.  Carpenter  had  hinted 
and  pointed  out  the  relationship  of  drink  to  certain 
forms  of  hereditary  disease,  but  we  had  no  concep> 
tion  of  how  marked  is  the  influence  of  alcohol  to 
produce  disease  by  heredity ;  that  is  to  say,  not 
only  in  the  person  directly  affected,  but  in  the  off- 
spring of  that  person.  We  know  now  as  certainly 
as  possible  that  the  thoroughly  inebriate  man  or 
woman  having  children,  impress  those  children  dis- 
.tinctly  with  the  diseases  which  spring  from  the  use 
of  this  particular  agent,  and  here  we  have  Dr.  Ma- 
son again  coming  forward  and  telling  us  "  the  ine- 
briety of  parents  should  be  regarded  as  one  predis- 
posing cause  of  insanity  in  the  children.  The 
principal  cause  is  the  inebriety  in  the  parents — 92 
of  116  cases  in  our  asylum  have  such  a  parentage." 
Think  of  that,  and  if  anything  could  impress  the 
mind  more  solemnly  than  another  it  is  this:  think 
of  the  future  generations  in  reference  to  the  present. 
Tvhink  of  the  important,  solemn  truth  that  you  un- 


Twenty-one  Historic  Landmarks.  19 

wittingly,  by  indulging  in  this  one  particular  agent, 
may  be  the  progenitor  of  abuse  in  another  genera- 
tion, which  shall  be  affected  in  a  similar  manner, 
and  that  that  may  go  on  for  age  upon  age  always 
with  the  still-continued  increase  of  the  same  form 
of  disease,  intensified  perchance  and  multiplied  per- 
haps a  thousand  and  a  million  fold.  I  do  not  know 
anything  more  solemn  than  what  I  have  just  said 
in  regard  to  this  great  question.  Here,  like  as  a 
forest  may  begin  from  the  implantation  of  a  single 
plant,  so  from  the  beginning  of  the  taking  of  this 
agent  the  mischief  may  progress  from  generation 
to  generation,  until  at  last,  if  such  efforts  as  ours 
ire  not  put  forth,  this  world  might  indeed — I  am 
jsing  the  words  of  truth  and  soberness — become 
one  gigantic  inebriate  asylum. 

XVI. — ALCOHOL  AND  CRIME. 

Again,  we  have  had  brought  out  before  us  in  a 
manner  never  before  the  relationship  of  alcohol  to 
crime.  Our  judges  now  are  alive  to  this  subject. 
Some  have  said  that  90  per  cent,  of  the  cases  come 
from  this  cause,  and  this  very  day  the  papers  con- 
tain a  charge  by  Mr.  Justice  Kay,  in  which  he  says 
judicially — "  I  know  by  my  experience  that  50  per 
cent,  of  the  crime  of  the  kingdom  springs  from  this 
cause."  We  have  come  down  to  individual  forms 
of  moral  offence.  Just  think  of  this.  I  am  presi- 
dent of  a  society  called  "  The  Medical  Temperance 
Association."  There  are  300  of  us  banded  together 
as  Total  Abstainers — physicians  and  surgeons  in 
large  practice — not  to  make  a  propaganda  of  Total 


2O  Twenty-one  Historic  Landmarks. 

Abstinence,  but  to  meet  amongst  ourselves  (stran- 
gers  are  welcomed),  and  discuss  the  points  relating 
to  Total  Abstinence  which  are  most  interesting  tc 
us  in  the  treatment  of  disease.  A  little  while  ago 
the  question  came  up  as  to  the  treatment  of  dipso- 
mania. That  being  a  public  question  we  opened 
our  doors  generally.  We  had  a  very  remarkable 
discussion  on  this  subject,  and  what  struck  me  as  I 
was  presiding  was  that  everybody  who  spoke  dealt 
with  one  moral  aspect  of  the  question.  We  speak 
when  talking  of  a  disease  of  its  "  diagnosis  " — in 
other  words,  an  explanation  of  the  disease  from  its 
symptoms.  We  were  all  of  this  mind,  that  one  of 
the  most  diagnostic  marks  of  drink-craving,  that 
which  distinguishes  it  as  a  mental  characteristic 
from  all  other  things  is,  that  the*  drink-era ver  is  al- 
ways a  falsehood  teller,  that  there  is  no  actual  case 
where  a  person  affected  with  the  drink-craving  has 
been  known  to  speak  the  truth,  that  we  never  can 
believe  a  word  they  say,  and  many  of  us  are  oi 
opinion  that  the  tendency  to  untruthfulness  de- 
scends to  the  children  of  those  people.  See  how 
solemnly  strange  it  is  that  a  physical  agent  should 
be  taken  into  the  body  which  should  after  a  time 
so  destroy  all  moral  sense  of  right  and  thought  ot 
responsibility,  that  the  very  foundation  of  morality 
is  actually  so  changed  that  the  person  becomes  as 
it  were  naturally  and  habitually  the  child  and  rep- 
resentative of  fal  ehooc\  These  are  facts  which 
were  not  known  twenty  years  ago,  and  which  must 
in  the  end  tell  largely  as  they  are  made  known  in 
the  promotion  of  ou  cause. 


Twenty-one  Historic  Landmarks.  21 

XVII.— ALCOHOL  AND  PAUPERISM. 

We  have  declared  that  alcohol  prepared  and 
taken  on  a  large  scale  is  a  source  of  starvation — 
that  to  take  large  quantities  of  this  is  to  starve. 
We  have  known  that  all  through  our  history.  Our 
painters  have  shown  that.  Our  Hogarths  and 
Cruikshanks  have  sketched  it.  All  who  have  de- 
picted drunkenness  have  connected  it  with  want 
and  penury.  We  get  beyond  that.  We  see^that 
nations  that  are  going  to  suffer  severely  are  nations 
that  destroy  the  produce  which  is  given  to  them 
for  the  supply  of  their  natural  wants,  by  appropri- 
ating it  to  unnatural  productions.  For  instance,  in 
Ireland — one  of  my  friends  has  brought  me  a  book 
on  the  culture  of  land  in  Ireland,  and  has  shown 
that  75  per  cent,  of  the  cereal  produce  of  the 
country  goes  for  the  production  of  one  grain — bar- 
ley, which  goes  in  its  turn  for  the  production  of  one 
destructive  drink — whisky.  Let  us  take  that  to 
our  minds;  and  that  is  only  one  illustration  of 
which  many  more  could  be  given  ;  but  we  have 
here  this  broad  fact  before  us,  that  directly  we  begin 
to  take  food  for  a  false  purpose,  we  take  from  our- 
selves that  which  nature  wished  us  to  have,  and 
starvation,  misery,  and  penury  are  the  natural 
results.  Perhaps  some  one  will  say,  "We  can  get 
corn  and  food  elsewhere."  But  we  can  only  do  it 
by  the  extension  of  our  principles  elsewhere,  be- 
cause if  the  opposite  were  to  prevail  then  those 
countries  sinking  into  the  same  abyss  would  per- 
form  the  same  act,  and  the  whole  world  might  in 
course  of  time  be  brought  into  one  gigantic  famine. 


22  Twenty-one  Historic  Landmarks. 

XVIII. — ALCOHOL  AND  PRISON  LIFE. 

We  have  gained  a  piece  of  information  we  had 
not  twenty-one  years  ago.  Twenty-one  years  ago 
it  was  common  to  say,  "  What  the  Total  Abstain- 
ers say  is  right  enough,  but  we  are  accustomed  to 
the  use  of  strong  drinks,  and  are  unable  to  leave 
them  off;  it  is  dangerous  to  leave  them  off.  You 
must  not  break  lightly  a  habit.  You  must  be 
moderate."  On  that  point  we  have  a  grand  experi- 
ment going  on  in  our  model  prisons.  We  know 
that  those  unfortunates  who  are  locked  up  are 
locked  up  directly  from  this  agent.  When  my 
mind  became  turned  toward  the  action  of  alcohol 
upon  the  body  I  said,  "  Here  is  a  crucial  test  about 
the  leaving  off."  I  inquired  of  all  the  prisons — 
<f  Do  you  let  these  people  down  drop  by  drop,  and 
gradually  reduce  it?"  "No,"  I  found  was  the 
response.  As  the  prison  door  closes  the  tap  closes, 
so  far  as  they  are  concerned.  Then  I  asked,  "  Do 
they  suffer  in  any  way  ?  "  The  answer  was  "  Never.' 
But  wherever  I  made  inquiry  into  prison  discipline 
of  life  I  have  never  once  found  an  instance  where 
it  could  be  shown  that  the  sudden  leaving  off  of 
their  drink  by  these  people  was  a  cause  of  any  dis- 
ease or  any  kind  of -defect  whatsoever.  In  America 
and  Canada  we  have  had  some  experience.  Dr. 
Buck  has  recently  published  some  experiments  he 
has  conducted.  In  600  cases  he  has  removed  sud- 
denly strong  drink,  and  he  says  his  asylum  was 
never  in  better  condition,  and  that  he  has  never  had 
the  least  occasion  to  suppose  that  the  slightest  in- 
jury was  inflicted.  For  the  cause  of  the  moral  side 


Twenty-one  Historic  Landmarks.  23 

of  this  question  this  is  a  fact  of  supreme  moment 
for  you  to  bear  in  mind. 

XIX. — ALCOHOL  AND  HISTORY. 

We  get  to  see  that  through  history  there  is  a 
great  deal  to  be  learned  in  regard  to  what  have 
been  the  failures  of  nations.  Historians  now  are 
beginning  to  look  up,  and  say  there  were  great 
wars  at  various  times — how  did  they  spring  up? 
Who  were  the  men  that  led  them  ?  They  look  at 
those  great  wars  that  led  to  the  American  Revolu- 
tion. Who  were  the  statesmen?  Why,  they  were 
the  statesmen  who  were  always  in  wine.  Loojv  at 
the  great  riots  and  troubles  that  have  arisen.  What 
was  their  origin  ?  Wine  and  strong  drink.  Even 
Alexander  the  Great  is  spoken  of  as  '''Alexander 
the  Drunkard,"  and  it  is  known  that  he  died  intoxi- 
cated. Historians  will  soon  be  able  to  pick  from 
the  history  of  the  past  that  which  was  sober  and 
that  which  was  drunken  in  the  history  of  mankind 
and  of  nations. 

XX. — ALCOHOL  AND  LEGISLATION. 

We  have  scored  a  point  in  legislation.  Twenty- 
one  years  ago  no  statesman  would  have  dared  to 
have  thought  of  legislation  as  touching  the  English 
Juggernaut.  On  the  contrary,  he  would  let  our 
people  roll  under  its  wheels,  and  be  killed  whole- 
sale, and  think  nothing  about  it ;  but  now  it  is  the 
ambition  of  statesmen  to  lead  the  van,  and  by  and 
by  Sir  Wilfrid  Lawson  would  have  more  compeers, 
perchance,  than  he  liked,  were  it  not  that  his  heart 
is  as  sound  as  his  head. 


24  Twenty-one  Historic  Landmarks. 

XXI. — ALCOHOL  AND  OURSELVES. 

Lastly,  we  have  given  up  the  notion  pretty  gen- 
erally —  those  who  are  men  of  science  and  ol 
thought — of  alcohol  as  a  necessity.  That  general 
expression  of  alcohol  as  a  necessity  has  passed 
from  our  minds  by  the  accumulated  evidence  de- 
rived from  so  many  sources.  We  speak  now  of 
this  as  a  plague,  and  we  say  it  produces  fever,  and 
it  kills ;  we  speak  of  this  as  a  pestilence,  for  we  say 
that  it  infects,  and  spreads,  and  devastates.  Twenty- 
one  years  ago  we  used  to  hear  in  our  churches  the 
miaister  say :  "  From  plague,  pestilence,  and  famine, 
from  battle  and  murder,  and  from  sudden  death" 
—and  we  used  to  hear  the  congregation  give  the 
response — "  Good  Lord  deliver  us."  Now,  by  the 
knowledge  we  have,  we  say  yes,  and  plague,  and 
pestilence,  and  famine,  battle,  murder,  and  sudden 
death  are  all  more  or  less  linked  up  with  this  one 
agent ;  and  we  declare  that  if  we  could  say,  and 
not  only  say,  but  insure  ourselves  that  we  were  de- 
livered from  this  one  agent,  then  the  rest  of  our 
deliverance  were  indeed  at  hand. 


5132 


This  book  is  DUE  on  the  last  date  stamped  below 


BAR  B  * 


2  \&»y\ 

lWOCT27ttH     AUGl3  1956 
MAY  4     1960 

JAN  4- 


TC3     4 


T 

2  9  1962 


Form  L-9-15m-7,'31 


000  893  752 


i: 


I 


DO   NOT    REMOVE 
THIS    BOOK  CARD    | 


University  Research  Library 


m 


